Speaker in the Bio-Modelling Seminar Series is Mario A Natiello

In 2016 the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) recommend to their constituent countries to test the new technologies proposed to control Aedes aegypti populations. Following the endorsement, Argentina endured a mounting pressure by private interests to allow, and economically support, tests on RIDL-SIT technology. Yielding to the requests of public health authorities we developed a simple ecological model compatible with the information available. It presents a interdependent dynamics of mosquito populations and food in an homogeneous setting. Mosquito populations are described in a stochastic compartmental setup in terms of reaction norms depending on the available food in the environment. The development of the model allows us to indicate some critical biological knowledge that is missing and could (should) be produced. Using the model we foresee how the releases proposed are likely to increase epidemic risk after they have concluded. Hybridation levels, release numbers of mosquitoes as a function of intervention duration and target are calculated.