Mosquito Free Hawaiʻi
A workshop convened on September 6-7, 2016 to seek strategic solutions to eliminate mosquito-borne diseases affecting humans and wildlife. Workshop participants included experts in mosquitoes and mosquito-borne pathogens, local leaders, and public health and wildlife specialists. Discussions focused on novel technologies to transform, suppress and ideally eliminate alien mosquito vectors from the Hawaiian Islands using an integrative systems-thinking approach. Attendees concluded that broad support to engage the public, develop the science, and put resources to work on locally appropriate solutions is critical to combat serious threats of mosquito-transmitted diseases to protect both Hawai‘i’s public health and unique biodiversity. The white paper below is a summary of discussions from the workshop.
The “Mosquito-Free Hawai‘i” meeting and resulting white paper are distinct from the Landscape-Scale Mosquito Control Steering Committee’s efforts to evaluate the use of Wolbachia transinfected mosquitoes as a birth control method. The paper is presented here as context for the broader discussions about mosquito control that have taken place, but does not directly describe the work undertaken by the Steering Committee.