Preventing Zika: Researchers looking for new, better ways to control mosquitoes
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* Kim Krisberg

Rhoel David Ramos Dinglasan has been chasing mosquitoes for decades — and in much more austere environments than Florida. In fact, much of his research has focused on creating a malaria vaccine. Today, he is in Florida testing new — hopefully better — ways to control the tiny disease carriers.

In December 2016, in the wake of Zika, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention awarded $184 million to a range of critical Zika readiness and research efforts, including $40 million to establish regional research centers on vector control. One of those centers is the Southeastern Regional Center of Excellence in Vector-Borne Diseases: Gateway Program, a collaboration of scientists at four Florida universities that hopes to shut down vector-borne disease threats at their earliest stages and before they spread beyond Florida’s borders.

Dinglasan, PhD, MPH, who serves as the center’s director, said Florida’s location often makes it a “gateway” for vector-borne diseases into the broader country and its residents are often the first affected.

As of late March, Florida had reported 29 Zika cases in 2017 and nearly 200 in 2016.

“We thought, ‘Why not position ourselves as gatekeepers?’” said Dinglasan, also an associate professor of infectious diseases at the University of Florida’s Emerging Pathogens Institute. “Why don’t we stand up to break the transmission link in Florida for diseases like Zika?”

To do that, Dinglasan and his colleagues around the state are partnering with local officials to create and test ways to better control mosquitoes, and in particular, the *Aedes aegypti* mosquito, which transmits Zika, as well as dengue, yellow fever and chikungunya. The center is still new, but teams are already laying the groundwork for long-term study and evaluation. For example, Dinglasan said scientists are working with local mosquito control districts to gather baseline data and set up active vector surveillance so researchers will know whether their interventions had an impact over time.

One main goal, he told The Nation’s Health, is to find a way to “use surveillance as an intervention, rather than as a response.” More specifically, Dinglasan and colleagues hope to develop an algorithm that can help public officials predict where a disease risk will most likely occur so that they can then deploy their surveillance systems more precisely. As projects move forward, Dinglasan said researchers will be sharing their models with health and mosquito control officials to gather their feedback and ensure the final products are actually useful to real-world scenarios.

“We want to find a way to more effectively deploy our mosquito control resources,” he said. “We want to get it down to the minimum data that’s needed to make better decisions.”

Another project in the works — this one based out of the center’s University of Miami cohort — is testing the feasibility of using a mosquito control technique first tested in Mali in South Florida. The technique is a toxic sugar bait for mosquitoes. The trap, Dinglasan said, is baited with a synthetic attractant that mosquitoes like better than water for laying their eggs. After a female mosquito lands in the trap, its ingredients can kill both adult and larvae in the same spot. Dinglasan said researchers plan to test the traps this summer and compare their results to baseline data from nearby counties.

“Mosquitoes have evolved in ways to take on everything we throw at them,” said Dinglasan, noting that mosquitoes are already evolving to become resistant to insecticides. “We can’t let our guard down. From a research point of view, there’s still a lot of unknowns.”

For more on CDC-funded Zika research, visit [www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2016/p1222-zika-funding.html](http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2016/p1222-zika-funding.html).

*   Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association