Taiwan has a hot climate and mosquitoes can be seen all year round. On September 10, the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (Taiwan CDC) held a press conference titled “Simple DIY to keep your house mosquito-free.” At the press conference, Taiwan CDC invited Dr. Huang Chin-gi, an expert from the National Mosquito-Borne Diseases Control Research Center under the National Health Research Institutes (NHRI) and Wang Neng-po, chief of Tianliao Village in Tainan City’s South District, to talk about how a mosquito Gravitrap works and ways to make DIY traps at home. Through the event, Taiwan CDC called on the public to deploy Gravitraps in order to better understand vector mosquito activities in their homes and to actively eliminate breeding sources of mosquitoes that are vectors of diseases such as dengue fever and Chikungunya fever.

Mosquitoes indoors are mostly found in bathrooms, kitchens and dining rooms, said Dr. Huang Chin-gi. Therefore, observing small Gravitraps at home is a good way to understand vector mosquito activities. If the number of mosquitoes caught by the flypaper inside a Gravitrap is excessively high, the homeowner should check the surroundings for containers with standing water, and follow prevention measures to reduce mosquitoes. Dr. Huang also demonstrated how to make a DIY Gravitrap at the event.

Tianliao Village Chief Wang Neng-po, who has participated in an NHRI program to deploy Gravitraps at home, shared his experience at the press conference. Local residents in Tianliao Village were worried during the outbreak of dengue fever in 2015. However, the number of vector mosquitoes decreased after residents actively installed Gravitraps in their homes. No cases of dengue fever have been reported in Tianliao Village in the past two years, a testimony of the effectiveness of Gravitraps.

Taiwan CDC pointed out that eliminating mosquito breeding sources is the most effective way to prevent mosquito-borne diseases. The public is urged to search for potential breeding sources, remove standing water in containers, clean the containers, and deploy Gravitraps to reduce vector mosquitoes. Hospitals and medical centers are recommended to use NS1 test kits when patients show symptoms for dengue fever, so as to facilitate prompt diagnosis and case reporting. For more information, please visit the Taiwan CDC’s website at https://www.cdc.gov.tw, or call the toll-free Communicable Disease Reporting and Consultation Hotline, 1922 (or 0800-001922).