The National Health Research Institutes (NHRI) said yesterday that its research team had developed an uncrewed ground vehicle systems capable of entering ditches in urban areas to observe mosquito ecology and effectively apply insecticide for vector control.
More than 8,000 local cases of dengue fever have been reported in Taiwan this year, and as the disease is transmitted to people through the bite of infected mosquitoes, effective vector control is paramount in preventing dengue transmission.
In the past, governments have relied on people to patrol the sewers and ditches for mosquito larvae, which requires a lot of effort and time, but poses a risk to the workers and can miss some hidden breeding grounds, NHRI National Mosquito-Borne Diseases Control Research Center project assistant investigator Liu Wei-liang (劉韋良) said
Photo courtesy of the institute
Liu and the research team collaborated with the Kaohsiung Department of Health and an aerospace technology company to develop uncrewed ground vehicle systems that can enter sewers and ditches to observe mosquito ecology. They have tested it in one of five districts in Kaohsiung from May to August in 2018.
Lui said they found mosquitoes in about 21 percent of the inspected ditches. He added that after deploying another unmanned ground vehicle equipped with high-temperature water spray to clean the larvae breeding grounds and insecticide spray to kill the mosquitoes and larvae, the vector density reduced from 0.62 to 0.19.
The team’s study has been published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, titled “Use of unmanned ground vehicle systems in urbanized zones: A study of vector Mosquito surveillance in Kaohsiung” in June.
Liu said as the ground vehicles currently have individual functions, the team is working to further improve the high-resolution digital camera and spraying system, hoping that the functions can be integrated to one vehicle that can effectively and instantly monitor mosquitoes and implement spraying controls.
Max Lo (羅正方), National Drone Industry Association chairman, said the ground vehicles are most suited for monitoring hard-to-reach areas by people, such as inside sewers and ditches, and as technology continues to advance, some vehicles are not only waterproof, but have several other functions.
The team hopes to improve the unmanned ground vehicle systems to include monitoring, cleaning, and insecticide spraying he said, adding that unmanned aerial vehicles are also being used to patrol gutters and water towers on the rook of empty buildings this year, and that the drones can detect standing water and spray insecticide, saving patrol and disinfection manpower.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its