Abu Dhabi’s smart mosquito traps a huge success

Reflecting its commitment to sustainability and innovation in public health protection, Abu Dhabi has announced the success of its pioneering model in mosquito control through smart traps.

These traps represent a radical shift in the way mosquito populations are monitored, tracked, and managed.

This initiative comes in response to the growing challenges posed by climate change, urban expansion, increased travel, and the spread of pesticide-resistant mosquito strains.

The smart traps use advanced technology that mimics human body emissions, attracting female mosquitoes seeking blood by releasing carbon dioxide and using a chemical attractant that mimics human scent.

Once the mosquitoes approach, they are drawn in by a fine fan and trapped inside a designated collection net, ensuring efficient monitoring without the use of internal chemicals.

The smart traps are equipped with precise sensors and advanced wireless data transmission systems, allowing for the immediate transmission of information including the number of captured mosquitoes, temperature, humidity, and time to a central cloud database.

This data is analysed using artificial intelligence tools and interactive dashboards, enabling control teams to make informed and timely decisions based on the biological behavior patterns of mosquitoes and environmental changes. Environmental and public health experts have noted that these traps represent a qualitative leap in entomological epidemiology, providing for the first time the ability to track mosquito population development and analyse daily and seasonal activity patterns with unprecedented accuracy, including the impact of environmental factors such as high temperatures or varying humidity levels. Since their introduction in Abu Dhabi in 2020, the smart trap network has recorded remarkable results.

The efficiency of mosquito capture has increased by over 400 per cent, with the average number of mosquitoes captured in smart traps rising from 60 (in traditional traps) to more than 240 per smart trap, reflecting much higher targeting efficiency and enabling the creation of a rich database on the nature and locations of mosquito spread.

This technology has also contributed to a reduction in the number of recorded breeding sites by over 42 per cent further decreasing active mosquito breeding sites in 2024.

This reduction would not have been possible without the precise information provided by the traps on peak activity times and spread locations.