About

This web portal has been created as part of the Big Mosquito Bytes project, funded by Fundació ”la Caixa” and implemented by CEAB-CSIC. UPF, MPIDR, CNE CIBERSP/ISCIII, and CREAF in order to reduce the health risk posed by the presence of the tiger mosquito, capable of transmitting dengue, Zika or chikungunya. The project is focussed on the factors that affect the transmission of these viruses.

The portal has also received co-financing from the Next Generation EU funds through the Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan (PRTR) for the development of entomological surveillance tools to be implemented in Spain based on citizen science, validated by field studies that combine with mosquito-borne disease surveillance and control. These tools have been designed as a new information system for the Public Health Surveillance Network of the Center for the Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies (CCAES) of the Ministry of Health of Spain.

Many components can contribute to the spread of a mosquito-borne virus. On the one hand, there are factors that correspond to the mosquito, including its present in an area, its abundance, the climatic conditions that favor population growth, its period of daily activity and its seasonality throughout the year. On the other hand, there are factors related to people, including the distribution of human populations, their density, daily movements, travel, lifestyles, and other socioeconomic variables. The intersection of all of these factors modulates mosquito-human interaction, and understanding this modulation is vital to understand the transmission of these viruses.