CRI听力:Brazil Employs Smartphone App to Combat Zika-Spreading Mosquito

For Luciana Santos, doing her part in Brazil's fight to control the mosquito that spreads diseases like Zika and Dengue is as easy as a couple of clicks on her smartphone.

Santos lives in Niteroi, Rio de Janeiro's sister city, where local authorities recently launched an app called "Sem Dengue," or "Without Dengue."

"You are always scared of illnesses but I think this app is useful to help people to be aware and not to have breeding grounds."

The app Santos is using allows residents to report stagnant water that can serve as a breeding ground for the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which carries a list of viruses including Dengue, Yellow Fever, and even Zika virus.

Brazil has stepped up its fight against the mosquitoes since researchers linked the outbreak of Zika virus with a surge in cases of microcephaly, in which babies are born with abnormally small heads. The condition can cause mental retardation and a host of long-term problems.

So, when Santos recently came across several puddles swimming with mosquito larvae while strolling on Jurujuba Beach, she snapped a photo and sent the shot through the app.

Rodrigo Neves, Mayor of Niteroi explains how the app works.

"Through that app developed in partnership with Colabe, the citizen can register and take a picture of possible breeding grounds for mosquito. So, through the app, he sends the information to City Hall and through the health surveillance, the municipal guard, the preservation secretary, and the municipality acts immediately."

He also told media that since the launch, the app has generated hundreds of responses.

Now more than two dozen other cities across Brazil are using the app.

Google engineers and UNICEF are also using new technologies to help Brazil.

Volunteer Google engineers are now working with UNICEF to create a system that combines several types of data to help predict where the Aedes mosquito might next become particularly active.

Chris Fabian, co-leader of UNICEF's Innovation Unit, introduces how the system functions.

"We are going to start looking at things like temperature, like household income and poverty, and things like people movement and mobility, where populations are moving. We think that those types of data will give us and our government's partners insight into where we most need to spend our efforts and our time in the Zika response."

He also said the data sets will be cross-referenced with epidemiological maps created by the country's Health Ministry, and the result could help fumigators know better which areas to target.