Shiloh
Editor, Senior Moderator
Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/03/2436281.htm?site=idx-qld
Far north Queensland health authorities say Australia has become the first country outside of Brazil to use a computer system to help crack down on dengue fever.
Two people have been diagnosed with the mosquito-borne disease in Cairns this week.
Brian Montgomery from the Tropical Population Health Network says 65 new mosquito traps have been set up in the region in the past year and a website is alerted every time a mozzie is trapped.
"She'll be looking for a place to lay her eggs and as she goes about doing that she gets stuck on the glue panel," he said.
"So when the traps are monitored each week, there's a simple count of how many mosquitos are in that trap and the data is basically fed straight into a mobile phone and that mobile phone then transmits the data to a website."
Mr Montgomery says this is the first time mosquito monitoring has been done in a strategic way in Australia.
"The beauty of the system is that because it's web-based, the State Government and the local council can share the same data so we can start our conversations," he said.
"We have a map sitting in front of us and we can ... [see] the red dot which means, okay there's a hot spot here."
Far north Queensland health authorities say Australia has become the first country outside of Brazil to use a computer system to help crack down on dengue fever.
Two people have been diagnosed with the mosquito-borne disease in Cairns this week.
Brian Montgomery from the Tropical Population Health Network says 65 new mosquito traps have been set up in the region in the past year and a website is alerted every time a mozzie is trapped.
"She'll be looking for a place to lay her eggs and as she goes about doing that she gets stuck on the glue panel," he said.
"So when the traps are monitored each week, there's a simple count of how many mosquitos are in that trap and the data is basically fed straight into a mobile phone and that mobile phone then transmits the data to a website."
Mr Montgomery says this is the first time mosquito monitoring has been done in a strategic way in Australia.
"The beauty of the system is that because it's web-based, the State Government and the local council can share the same data so we can start our conversations," he said.
"We have a map sitting in front of us and we can ... [see] the red dot which means, okay there's a hot spot here."