Cardona-Cordero's Lab

Cardona-Cordero's Lab

Mosquito-borne diseases are a public health challenge locally and globally. Historically, diseases spread by mosquitoes have become endemic to many Latin American Countries and the Caribbean. Puerto Rico possess unique weather conditions yearlong, making it a domestic epicenter for mosquito-borne diseases. Research suggests that environmental conditions such as global trends for extreme weather stressors including warmer temperatures, extreme rain events and intense hurricane seasons can likely act on both individuals’ organisms and over time, among the genetic characteristics of populations, including mosquitoes. These trends have been observed in Puerto Rico in the last decade with the hottest year on record in 2012 and hurricanes with extreme rainfall hitting the island in 2017 (Irma and María) and as recent as September 17, 2022 (Hurricane Fiona). Prevention programs and campaigns have been implemented in Puerto Rico, mostly in metropolitan areas; however, rates of disease transmission indicate the need for awareness, especially among vulnerable rural populations. We are proposing to accomplish the goal of establishing a community-led surveillance mosquito program to determine the distribution and abundance of Aedes, Anopheles, and Culex and identify spatio-temporal patterns of mosquitoes in the west side of Puerto Rico. Our first approach will be to create standard operational procedure by implementing and monitoring the system at the University located in Aguadilla, one of the municipalities with the highest average relative risk.