270 - Repelling and catching mosquitoes with electric fields using insulated electrical wires

To control and prevent mosquito-borne diseases, insecticides are often our only option, but their excessive use has led to the rapid development and spread of insecticide resistance. Health experts have called for intensified efforts to find new approaches to reduce mosquito populations and human-mosquito contact. A new tool that is currently being piloted is the use of high-power electrical fields (EFs) that repel mosquitoes by creating an invisible mosquito barrier. The technology is being integrated into outdoor aluminum window blinds, but our aim is to make the technology more accessible and more widely implementable by using insulated electrical wires. We quantified the number of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that are successfully repelled and/or captured by EFs that are generated using insulated electrical wires. Test voltages ranged from 0V (control) to 18kV/cm over 23h periods. Mosquitoes were released in a free-flight room, and lured into a BG-Pro trap that was baited with carbon dioxide. Mosquitoes had to pass through a window that contained our electric barrier: a single row of vertical wires with alternating polarity. EFs using insulated electrical wires prevented 60-80% of mosquitoes from flying through the window, at voltages >3kV/cm. Stronger EFs did not lead to a stronger repellent effect at this point in time (23h after release), but did increase the number of mosquitoes that were captured (i.e. got stuck to one of the wires). Detailed data will be presented at the conference, as we are conducting our experiments at the time of writing. Our data clearly show that sufficiently strong EFs can be generated with insulated electrical wires to both repel and capture host-seeking mosquitoes. This will reduce human-mosquito contact and as a result mosquito nuisance and disease transmission risk. We will discuss how EFs impact mosquito behaviors, as well as use-case scenarios.