Steven Michal Christina, Solomon Prabakaran Dhanaraj, Arumugam Pathman, Rasali Rahimah, Dominic Arthur Constantine, Md Ideris Hiruan, Peter Marius Dina Fidelia Anna
Kota Kinabalu District Health Office, Sabah State Health Department Ministry of Health, Malaysia.
J Infect Dev Ctries. 2024 Feb 29;18(2):299-302. doi: 10.3855/jidc.18292.
Given the stagnating progress in the fight against dengue in Kota Kinabalu, there is an urgent need to use other strategies to complement the existing vector control, focusing on larviciding. Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology has been used in vector control programs in many countries. The aim of this study was to determine the feasibility of using UAVs for larviciding to control Aedes mosquitoes in urban areas.
The Hexarotor Agro Drone (Polardrone Sdn Bhd, Malaysia) was used to carry out larviciding using Vectobac® manufactured by Valent BioSciences LLC, Libertyville, USA. The drone flew at a height of 10 feet and at a speed of 5 m/s. A total of 32 items with 10 larvae in each item were placed to test the effectiveness of larviciding using UAV.
Out of 32 items used, 4 containers had a 100% larva mortality (13.3% mortality). The drone was not able to reach the designated spraying route that had been pre-programmed. This was due to interference with the electromagnetic waves emitted from the home satellite dishes, that were in front of the houses along the route.
This trial showed that UAVs will be more suitable for use in larviciding in an open area without electromagnetic disturbances from electric house poles and satellite TV dishes that are commonly present in urban areas.
鉴于哥打基纳巴卢在登革热防治方面进展停滞，迫切需要采用其他策略来补充现有的病媒控制措施，重点是杀幼虫。无人机技术已在许多国家的病媒控制项目中得到应用。本研究的目的是确定使用无人机进行杀幼虫以控制城市地区伊蚊的可行性。
使用六旋翼农用无人机（马来西亚Polardrone私人有限公司），搭载美国伊利诺伊州利伯蒂维尔的Valent生物科学有限责任公司生产的Vectobac®进行杀幼虫操作。无人机飞行高度为10英尺，速度为5米/秒。总共放置了32个装有10只幼虫的容器，以测试使用无人机进行杀幼虫的效果。
在使用的32个容器中，有4个容器的幼虫死亡率达到100%（死亡率为13.3%）。无人机无法到达预先编程的指定喷洒路线。这是由于受到沿路线房屋前的家用卫星天线发射的电磁波干扰。
该试验表明，无人机在没有城市地区常见的电线杆和卫星电视天线电磁干扰的开阔区域进行杀幼虫操作时会更适用。
