Fighting Zika Mosquitos With Tires

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Fighting Zika Mosquitos With Tires

Fri, 2016-04-08 07:52 — davidmc

With 33 countries in the Americas now identified as carrying the Zika virus, the need for a solution to the epidemic is great. But with limited funds in the regions where it’s spreading the fastest, the need for a cost-effective one is even greater.

Thanks to the creativity of some researchers in Canada and Mexico, we may have just landed one. In a study released Thursday morning, researchers revealed a cost-effectivemosquito trap capable of killing tens of thousands eggs in a matter of months—using spare car parts.

Named the “ovillanta,” the device is essentially a mosquito trap made of two sections of a recycled car tire. Cut into half circles, the two pieces are molded into a mouth-like shape, the bottom of which is filled with a milk-based solution that attracts mosquitoes. A valve to release liquid sits at the base of the ovillanta, allowing the researchers to drain and filter the device.

Mosquitos have long thrived in the inside section of tires. Capable of containing heat, holding water, and collecting organic rain matter, tires form an ideal breeding ground for mosquitos—an incubator of sorts where female mosquitos can safely reproduce. The Aedes aegypti mosquito—which carries Zika, among other infectious diseases—particularly love tires.

“We have dragged mosquitoes around the world in billions of used tires,” Paul Reiter, a French professor of medical entomology, told The New Yorker in 2012. He’s right. In 1985, when a large population of Aedes albopictus mosquitoes were discovered in Houston, Texas, officials traced it to tires arriving from Japan. Since then, researchers have tracked similar instances across the globe.

see more at: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/04/07/fighting-zika-mosquitos-with-tires.html

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