KOM (Keep Out Mosquitoes) project: Anthropo-philic terraforming and manipulation of landscapes for mosquito vector control in malaria disease management and eradication

Abstract

The ongoing KOM Project is researching how to construct affordable and sustainable mosquito-free zones, in malaria endemic sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere. Mosquitoes are vectors for several diseases malaria, Chikungunya, dengue fever, lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis), Ross River fever, West Nile virus disease and yellow fever. Isolating mosquitoes from hosts also breaks disease transmission. In summary, KOMKOM: Keep Out Mosquitoes = Keep Out Malaria KIMKIM: Keep In Mosquitoes = Keep In Malaria So, one wants to re-engineer habitations as bio-zones on the landscape scale [ O(1) mile ]: Mosquito-free zones (MFZ), KOM enclosures; Mosquito-confinement-containment zones (MCZ), KIM enclaves.A KOM (KIM) enclosure is a mosquito-impenetrable wall surrounding an area, deployed permanently or seasonally in a rural or urban setting. The barrier is augmented with a distribution of BTK (bait-trap-kill) units. Mosquitoes can then be subjected to herding, destruction or entomological assessments. Currently, the Project is in the concept development stage, and is specifying and prototyping subsystems: KOM (KIM) walls, fringes: skirts and collars; BTK units; airlock technology for entry-exit ways; and automating vector destruction. The companion MedizDroids Project is researching UAVs, drones and multi-copters as mosquito control drones for vector control, that can exploited to eliminate mosquitoes from KOM (KIM) zones.