The Navy Entomology Center of Excellence (NECE), Jacksonville, Florida, along with its partners at the Navy Environmental Preventive Medicine Unit-7 (NEPMU-7) Rota, Spain, and the Cabo Verde Institute of Public Health, teamed up in 2021 to conduct mosquito surveillance in the Republic of Cabo Verde, a small island country located approximately 400 miles off the coast of West Africa.
This support effort was part of an ongoing Global Emerging Infections Surveillance (GEIS) project with a mission to collect, process, and screen local mosquito populations for important disease pathogens that threaten the island’s inhabitants.
Based out of the capital city of Praia, the teams conducted active and passive mosquito sampling over a two-week period in low-income neighborhoods where metal sheeting is used as roofing and curtains are used in place of doors to keep homes cool. These conditions provide vectors such as mosquitoes an opportunity to enter and shelter within the houses of these neighborhoods, thereby increasing potential exposure to diseases.
Active mosquito sampling consisted of using a specialized vacuum to capture resting mosquitoes inside homes, while passive sampling was conducted by deploying a trap that is specifically designed to attract adult mosquitoes with a lure that mimics the scent of humans.
The primary mosquito species of concern during the mission to Cabo Verde was Aedes aegypti - a common vector of viruses that cause yellow fever, dengue, and Zika. Female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes were collected and processed through a Biomeme real-time polymerase chain reaction thermocycler. The device, about the size of a Bluetooth speaker, can analyze mosquito DNA and RNA samples, often in under one hour, to determine the presence of a variety of disease pathogens during the screening process. This device is just one part of a mobile molecular surveillance platform implemented by NECE, the Sea Raven platform, along with DNA and RNA genome-sequencing equipment and techniques to rapidly detect the presence of disease pathogens worldwide.
Lt. j.g. Andrew Branch, NECE entomologist, was a member of the team that deployed to the island nation to conduct surveillance and provide surveillance and pathogen detection training to other members of the team.
“Being able to train our NEPMU-7 military colleagues and host nation partners about the Biomeme’s capabilities and portability was a great experience, heralding a new chapter in NECE’s Sea Raven mobile platform,” said Branch.
Mosquitoes remain the deadliest animal on earth through the pathogens they transmit to humans, killing over one million people per year. Mosquito-borne pathogens pose a significant and continuous threat to force health protection, and mosquito surveillance is critical even in some of the most geographically isolated regions of the world.
Fortunately, no disease pathogens were detected in any of the mosquito samples collected in and around local neighborhoods. Nevertheless, the nation’s small size and susceptible population should maintain vigilance for this and other biosecurity threats.
NECE’s teamwork and collaborative efforts directly assisted local public health and revised the force health protection knowledge of this important nation. With a rapidly growing global population, worldwide trade, migration, and introduction of invasive mosquito species to new regions, insect vectors such as the yellow fever mosquito pose continuous emerging health threats and challenges, highlighting the importance of continued surveillance efforts by NECE and its partners.
NECE is a field activity of the Navy and Marine Corps Public Health Center (NMCPHC), Portsmouth, Va. NMCPHC develops and shapes public health for the U.S. Navy and Marines Corps through health surveillance, epidemiology and analysis, disease and injury prevention, and public health consultation. Learn more by going to www.nmcphc.med.navy.mil. Follow NMCPHC on social media at: https://www.facebook.com/NavyAndMarineCorpsPublicHealthCenter http://twitter.com/nmcphc and https://www.instagram.com/nmcphc/
| Date Taken: | 06.13.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 06.13.2022 13:20 |
| Story ID: | 422807 |
| Location: | JACKSONVILLE, FL, US |
| Web Views: | 165 |
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