A New, Cheap, Easy to Use, Foldable and Portable Autocidal Ovitrap for Aedes Control at Community Level

Except for Yellow Fever there is still no operational vaccine, the Dengue vaccine (CYD-TDV, sold under the brand name Dengvaxia©) raised several issues and vaccination campaign were stopped. On the other hand there is still no specific treatment for the main arbovirus transmitted by Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus such as dengue, Chikungunya, Zika and recent outbreaks occurred all over the World. For WHO “vector control is the key strategy to control or prevent the transmission of dengue (and other arbovirus) but clearly there is a need for improved new vector control approaches. Only another one vaccine is available against arbovirus is against Japanese Encephalitis transmitted by Culex tritaeniorhynchus.

In line with this recommended approaches of new tools to be used at community level we successfully developed and implemented in Angola a “Very Simple Ovitrap Model” which actually “collected” eggs of Aedes aegypti warning for risk of arbovirus outbreaks, which, unfortunately, occurred few years later. These ovitraps were transformed as a tool for vector control in adding few drops of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) in the water and several hundred of tests showed that not a single larva of Aedes aegypti was ever found in these “Bt fitted simple ovitrap”.

To solve some operational issues (transport) we tested in Bali during 3 years several size and color of foldable container prepared as ovitraps and put in a garden among grass, banana trees etc, we thus collected eggs of Aedes albopictus, important vector of dengue and dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF), a serious threat in Asia, and preliminary tests (unpub.) showed some resistance to insecticide increasing the need for control.

According to these trials, made in complete field conditions, we proposed a new foldable model of ovitrap as a vector control tool presented as a kit to be used at community level with a 3 steps action: open it/fill it/use it.