Strengthening Emergency Preparedness through Marketing Digital Tools: Mosquito Alert at the DURABLE Annual Meeting
From February 19th to 21st, members of the Mosquito Alert team traveled to Paris to join the DURABLE Annual Meeting.
The research project DURABLE aims to provide high-quality scientific information in record time to support HERA’s ( European Health Emergency preparedness and Response Authority) decision-making in preparing for and responding to cross-border health threats and assessing the impact of countermeasures.
During these days, the Annual Meeting brought together leading experts in arboviruses, infectious disease research, arboviruses, and public health to discuss how innovative solutions can enhance preparedness and response to health emergencies.
The event, hosted at Institute Pasteur, marked a key moment for fostering collaboration across disciplines and advancing strategies to tackle emerging infectious threats.
As part of the Arboviruses session, we had the opportunity to present how our citizen science platform is strengthening emergency preparedness for mosquito-borne disease outbreaks.
Our talk, titled “Advancing Citizen Science Tools to Combat Mosquito-Borne
Diseases in Crisis and Emergency Settings”, showcased how the Mosquito Alert initiative empowers citizens to report mosquito sightings, breeding sites, and bites. This real-time data collection improves the surveillance of vector-borne diseases and supports quicker decision-making by health authorities in crisis and emergencies.
One of the highlights of our presentation was the recent and dramatic event of the floods in Valencia at the end of 2024, where Mosquito Alert played a role in the emergency response. Invited by the Ministry of Health to join the arboviruses crisis committee, we facilitated the centralization of citizen reports, enabling authorities to identify anomalies in mosquito activity. This example highlights the value of citizen science in complementing official public health responses during emergencies.
Our experience illustrated how combining digital innovation with public participation bridges the gap between scientific research and public health action, ultimately empowering society to take an active role in disease prevention.
The DURABLE Annual Meeting reaffirmed the consortium’s commitment to building stronger digital infrastructures and fostering collaborations to address global health challenges. We are proud to contribute to this mission, showing how citizen science can become a cornerstone of emergency preparedness in the face of growing health threats.
Stay tuned as members of the DURABLE consortium join forces to scale up digital tools and empower communities against vector-borne diseases.
