- AP has sent a proposal for the deployment of a Smart Mosquito Density System to the Union Ministry of Urban Development.
- Once approved, the system will be the first-of-its-kind project in the country.
- Under the system, modern technologies will be deployed to detect mosquito breeding before malaria and other vector-borne diseases such as dengue, chikungunya and zika become an epidemic.
- Initially, the system will be deployed in three urban local bodies of the State – Vijayawada, Vishakhapatnam and Tirupati.
- Optical sensors will be fixed to electricity poles to capture density, species and gender of mosquitoes before moving in to exterminate them.
- As per the initial proposal, around 10 sensors will be deployed per a square kilometre area.
- On this basis, a total of 1,850 sensors will be deployed across 185 square kilometres of three cities.
- The devices will analyse and transfer mosquito density data along with location to a central database.
- Special applications will be developed to prepare mosquito density heat maps based on the information received from sensors.
About the Project
- The Smart Mosquito Density System will operate autonomously and use state-of-the-art internet of things (IoT) technology.
- It will alert health and other agencies of emergencies.
- These thematic maps will help government agencies in prioritising sprays.
- The system will help the authorities in identifying breeding at exact location and that too with the right sprays for a particular species.
- Smart phones and web applications will be used to report sprays by location.
- There will be analytics to monitor the effectiveness of sprays.