A new app from the Higher Institute of Health to support tracking and research and fight Nile Fever . “Three simple gestures are required: download the app; take a photo of mosquitoes, breeding sites, received bites; Share".
The participatory science project, "Mosquito Alert", is coordinated by the Department of Public Health and Infectious Diseases of the La Sapienza University and is attended by the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, the Experimental Zooprophylactic Institute of the Venezie, the Science Museum (MUSE) of Trento and the University of Bologna.
Basically you just need a smartphone, download the free "Mosquito Alert" app and send the researchers photos of mosquitoes and possible breeding sites of the insect (eg manholes), but also reports of the bites received, as well as entire specimens of the insect . The tracing will be addressed to all mosquito species , including the so-called "common mosquito" or "nocturnal mosquito" (Culex pipiens), responsible for the transmission of the West Nile virus in Italy.
Since its first report in 1937 in Uganda , in the district of the same name, the West Nile virus is now present in the Middle East, North America, Western Asia and Europe, where it appeared in 1958 and in Italy since 2008. From the beginning of June to August 30, 2022, recalls the ISS, in our country there are 386 human cases of confirmed infection, with 22 deaths ; the first case was in Veneto and reports prevail in the north, but they are also recorded further south as in Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna, as well as, in fact, in Sardinia, with greater incidence in the Oristano area .
(Unioneonline / vl)
