Since 2012 there has been a dramatic increase in the frequency of exotic mosquito detections at Australia’s first ports of entry. The majority of these detections have occurred at Perth International Airport, with 36 separate incursions of exotic Aedes aegypti mosquitoes being detected between the 17th December 2015 and 4 March 2016.
Aedes aegypti, commonly known as the Dengue mosquito, as its name suggests is a vector of Dengue. The number of overseas travellers returning to Western Australia infected with Dengue continues to increase rapidly. The establishment of this vector in Western Australia would lead to a new significant public health risk.
This presentation outlines the complexity in unravelling how these exotic mosquitoes are entering Australia and where they may be coming from. We will outline the ecological, genetic and arboviral research currently being undertaken to answer some of these questions and find new methods to reduce the occurrence of exotic detections at our first ports of entry.