An Early Warning System for the Surveillance of Mosquito-Transmitted Viruses (ALARMO)

Mosquito-transmitted viruses have emerged unexpectedly causing explosive epidemics, millions of infections, and death. Early detection of these viruses is challenging as they emerge and spread infecting many before being noticed. To address this shortcoming, we propose to evaluate a surveillance system based on the detection of viruses in mosquito saliva. Mosquitoes expectorate viruses in their saliva during sugar feeding. A mosquito trap that detects viruses in saliva expectorated by mosquitoes has recently been developed. This trap consists of a mosquito trap box in which are added FTA cards coated with honey. The honey serves as a food source for the trapped mosquitoes and during feeding mosquitoes expectorate their saliva content onto the FTA card. The FTA cards are designed to inactivate and preserve viruses rendering viral detection possible. Detection of viruses in mosquito saliva signals impeding human infection.