Like malaria, dengue fever is transmitted by the bite of an infected mosquito. To combat the disease, scientists are using artificial intelligence to locate different types of disease-carrying mosquitoes and determine more appropriate solutions.
According to a report published in December 2024 in the medical journal Frontiers in Public Health, dengue is of particular concern in Southeast Asia, home to 1.3 billion of the 3.5 billion people living in countries where dengue is endemic.
Ms. Cabreros, who herself suffered from dengue fever, takes no chances in her small two-room house in Manila, the capital. Her husband works in Europe, but many people cannot afford mosquito nets, sprays, coils, and insecticide lotions.
Ms. Cabreros' biggest concern is for her granddaughters, aged one and nine.
She says she gets scared when she hears the sound of a mosquito in her apartment. She remembers the symptoms of the disease all too well.
"When I had dengue fever, I felt everything. I had dizziness, vomiting and headaches all over, then I felt weak," she explains.
She has an unwavering daily routine.
"In the evening, at 4 or 5 o'clock, I prepare a spray, a Baygone spray for the whole house. And when I light the mosquito coil, yes, and all around my house to prevent mosquitoes," she said.
According to the World Health Organization, dengue cases tend to be underreported, many are asymptomatic, and others are misdiagnosed.
The disease can be fatal, but even when it is not, the WHO indicates that families affected by the disease face considerable financial hardship, especially as healthcare systems are underdeveloped.
At this school, Maximo Estrella Elementary, the teaching staff are constantly on high alert.
Not only do they take precautions to ensure the premises are safe for children, but they also spare no effort in informing parents of the dangers of dengue.
The school principal, Mirra L. Alvarez, remembers the death of her own classmate, who succumbed to dengue fever.
She explains: "We asked the parents of kindergarten and first-grade students, since they are new to the school, to attend this orientation session, and during the health discussions, one of the topics addressed was dengue prevention and awareness. This allows these parents to educate their children in their own way when they return home."
Containers are placed in certain locations to trap the larvae left by female mosquitoes, thus reducing the chances of transmission. Each child receives a packet containing mosquito repellent.
Each child receives a pouch containing mosquito repellent. "We use strategies at school to remind children that they have applied lotion and other materials, such as dengue prevention kits which contain lotion and citronella bracelets for students," explains Mr. Alvarez.
According to the World Health Organization, the highest number of dengue cases was 6.5 million in 2023. This disease has affected more than 80 countries in all WHO regions and has resulted in 7,300 dengue-related deaths.
But dengue is just one of the diseases transmitted by mosquitoes.
According to the WHO, three species of mosquitoes, Aedes, Anopheles stephensi and Culex, spread diseases such as malaria, chikungunya, dengue, lymphatic filariasis, Rift Valley fever, yellow fever and Zika.
Some can be fatal, others can have lasting debilitating effects on a person's health.
All sorts of methods are being considered to fight mosquitoes: modifying them to change their reproductive cycle, stopping their parasites or viruses, and now vaccines against malaria.
At the University of South Florida in the United States, scientists are taking a different approach.
They use artificial intelligence to locate different types of disease-carrying mosquitoes to help health officials pinpoint areas of infestation and prepare to take action.
Ryan Carney, associate professor of digital sciences at the University of South Florida, believes that new tools are needed, alongside all the other methods used to combat mosquito-borne diseases.
He states: "Mosquitoes are responsible for more than 700 million infections and nearly one million deaths each year. Most of these deaths are due to malaria and involve children under 5 years old. That said, less than 3% of mosquito species are actually responsible for transmitting diseases to humans. It is therefore essential for us to detect the exact mosquito species for control and surveillance purposes, because, again, not all mosquitoes spread diseases and some mosquitoes spread specific diseases."
Cases of malaria and dengue fever can peak in certain regions at certain times, particularly during the rainy season. Being able to identify which type of mosquito is present in a specific area would help medical teams deliver aid more effectively.
Mr. Carney explains how the device they have developed works: "We haven't really talked about it yet, but we are also working on developing targeted attractants for the Anopheles stephensi mosquito. So there's an attractant in the trap, the mosquito—the female mosquito—flies into the trap, there's a fan that blows the mosquito inside, one of the components here is a sticky pad, so the mosquito lands on the sticky pad, the light and the camera flash and take a picture of that mosquito. We have algorithms that process this image and direct an artificial intelligence algorithm to identify the anatomical components as well as the species of the mosquito. This information is then shared with the user, and we can thus get an idea of the mosquitoes present in a specific area remotely, efficiently and very quickly."
His colleague, Sriram Chellappan, is an associate professor of artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and computer science.
Mr. Chellappan explains that for countries with underdeveloped health and surveillance systems, the problem is to locate potential areas of disease transmission.
"Our smart, AI-powered mosquito trap was inspired by the fact that mosquito monitoring is currently a purely manual process. Traps are set, thousands of mosquitoes are collected, most are discarded, and only a few are examined. If a mosquito is found to be carrying a disease, public health officials take note. But this process is very tedious, very time-consuming, and very inefficient. Given the advancements in artificial intelligence, we decided to develop a smart, AI-powered mosquito trap capable of trapping mosquitoes and using AI to automatically identify disease-carrying mosquitoes, whether it be Zika, malaria, dengue fever, etc."
It may be some time before these devices can be deployed in countries like the Philippines, but researchers say it is another tool in the box to help combat all types of disease-carrying mosquitoes.
The device can be manufactured easily and cheaply, and it is possible to rapidly increase production.
