Success with our HumBug Net trials!

HumBug Net passively captures mosquito flight tone in homes in rural Tanzania

In November 2020, we were able to visit our collaborators at the Ifakara Health Institute (IHI) accompanied by Dr Josue Zanga (Kinshasa School of Public Health - University of Kinshasa). Our primary aim was to finalise the protocol for our semi-field trial running in IHI’s fantastic Mosquito City semi-field facility. The trial will compare different HumBug Net configurations to ensure we capture maximal mosquito flight tone data without causing any impact or discomfort to the bednet user. 

We were also able to discuss and plan our longer-term community based study, scheduled to run next year. The study will compare the efficacy of our HumBug system with traditional mosquito survey methods (e.g. CDC – Light traps). We ran a short (5 day) trouble shooting pre-trial where we set up HumBug nets in four houses in Igumbiro; a sparsely populated rural village. 

This small pre-trial study succinctly demonstrated, for the first time in a rural Tanzanian setting, that our HumBug Net allows us to passively record the flight tone of host seeking mosquitoes entering people’s homes. 

Mosquito flight tone passively captured at Igumbiro

One of the study hits at the Mosquito City facility used in our semi-field trials

HumBug Net in place within one of the four pre-trial houses in Igumbiro

One of the four houses in Igumbiro where we have successfully demonstrated our HumBug Nets