Diseases spread by mosquitoes impact 50 percent of the world’s population, account for 17% of reported illnesses globally, kill more than a million people a year, cause billions of dollars in economic loss annually, and in some cases result in lifelong health problems for survivors
The Mission Mosquito Forum is designed as an action-oriented gathering to create new connections and partnerships, share successes (and hard lessons learned), and inspire creative collaborations to build community engagement strategies to stop infectious disease. The idea is simple. Prevention needs to move beyond the responsibilities of health officials and government bodies alone. Anyone who can be bitten by a mosquito is a potential partner. How do we scale outreach efforts? How do we find trusted partners to do so?
The Forum, through a cooperative agreement with Battelle, will bring together a broad range of international experts and communicators including public health officials from Zika-impacted countries, scientists, NGOs, mosquito researchers, development specialists, U.S. government health officials, museum curators, cultural organizations, journalists, filmmakers, citizen science practitioners, science communicators, entrepreneurs, and the private sector.