Combating Dengue With Innovative, Paradigm-shift-Strategies: Early Dengue Surveillance in Adult Aedes Mosquitoes

During dengue outbreaks, the Ministry of Health Malaysia employs various methods to control the spread of disease, including killing the larvae of Aedes mosquitoes, fogging, together with educating and disseminating information about the dengue outbreak, to the community. However, this is too late. Research has shown that when an outbreak has occurred, the viral infection has already spread among the community. Therefore, this current trial aims to educate the public (via questionnaire survey and interactions with the residential managements, mainly), detect dengue-infected mosquitoes, inform the communities of the presence of dengue-infected mosquitoes, followed by approaching and educating them to take precautionary measures before the outbreak happens. Trapping (using gravid oviposition sticky (GOS) traps) and detecting dengue virus non-structural 1 (NS1) antigen (using dengue NS1 kit) in the Aedes mosquitoes will be a more reliable way to alert the community before a potential dengue outbreak in their housing area. The community will receive information of presence of infected mosquitoes and probable dengue infections before dengue cases are reported. This will be an ideal time for clean-ups and for search and destroy activities. With this shift in approach and the use of newer techniques, it is hoped that deaths and epidemics due to dengue will be reduced.