A new weapon in the fight against dengue fever

As the Tampa Bay region fights off the spread of dengue fever, professors at USF are getting ready to deploy a smart mosquito trap. They tell FOX 13's Kylie Jones that could be a game changer for fighting mosquito-borne diseases like dengue. You've probably seen all of those helicopters spraying the mosquito hot spots, but what about figuring out where those dengue-spreading mosquitoes are lurking in the first place? Well, USF researchers have created this smart trap, and it can identify hundreds of mosquitoes at one time. Without this AI-powered smart trap, researchers explained that counties will trap mosquitoes, then manually identify each one of them. But they say out of 1,000 mosquitoes that are trapped, only a small percentage are actually identified. The smart trap is supposed to speed up that process. We don't do trapping, but once the mosquitoes get trapped, they fall into this chamber, they get stuck on a sticky pad, which you will see soon, And then we have cameras that will take pictures, send the images to a cloud, or they could even be processed locally. And then we will identify what genus and species the mosquitoes are. Then they can alert a county if a disease like dengue is being spread and identify potential hotspots. Professors at USF say they can identify the type of mosquito that spreads dengue with 98% accuracy. Professor Ryan Carney says the smart trap works in real time and can identify a dengue spreading mosquito like a needle in a haystack. This is instantaneous results compared to when a mosquito control district would set a trap, a traditional trap in the field. They would capture mosquitoes and maybe several days later would collect them, manually go through an entomologist would then sort them and identify them. identify them. Researchers just got another patent approved for this smart trap equipment and they're hoping to deploy it here in Florida and around the globe next year. Back to you.