2020 - There are no words | World Mosquito Program Skip to main content

Published date: 15 Dec 2020

Well there are a few…

Here are some pictures that capture some our achievements throughout the most challenging year imaginable.

SriLanks
 

Colombo

A new project in a new city in a new country. The response from the community to the implementation of our pilot program in Colombo, Sri Lanka has been overwhelmingly positive. In a country where dengue has emerged as a major public health concern, our method is welcomed as a much needed solution. Here the WMP tuk tuk is backed by a local marching band to help spread the word about our arrival.

BrazilClassroom
 

Niterói

Our teams in Brazil enjoy a productive and rewarding relationship with schools – helping build awareness around mosquitoes and our intervention in classrooms across Rio and Niterói. Here, a future genius gets up close and personal with some mosquito larvae with guidance from one of our field entomologists.

LaPaz
 

La Paz

La Paz, Mexico is a lively and intriguing place with the climate of a desert. Super hot with very little rainfall, it’s one of the more challenging environments in which to implement our method. Mexico also felt the full heat from the pandemic. Yet somehow, after successful pilots last year, 2020 saw the project expand to city-wide releases.

Zoom
 

Ho Chi Minh City

Look familiar? Despite everything, the show must go on. These Brady Bunch style meetings became the norm in a year that we can safely say has been anything but. Here’s to meeting in person, reuniting with our communities and releasing more mosquitoes to protect more people in 2021.

Adi44
 

Prof Uut

Our science lead in Yogyakarta, Adi Utarini had a year marked by triumph and tragedy. She and her teams celebrated the RCT result mentioned at the top of the page before she sadly lost her husband to COVID-19. Her contribution to the program and to scientific progress was acknowledged in the science journal Nature's Ten people who helped shaped science in 2020

Like most organisations, communities and individuals across the planet, the disruption caused by the global pandemic will be felt for some time to come. But the COVID impact has also compelled us to learn a few things about ourselves. We all learnt new ways of doing things. We learnt that we are resilient and adaptable as a unit stretched across several continents. And we learnt that our ambition to protect communities from communicable disease is more pertinent now than ever. 

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