Under the organization of the European Action IMAAC and financed by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) in collaboration with the AFRIMAC projects of the Island Council of Fuerteventura, trough the island’s Ministry of Economy and Finance, “this activity aims to analyze, through a multidisciplinary team, new techniques to fight against the mosquito-borne diseases, placing Fuerteventura as a reference centre for scientific research. Besides, the action is part of the strategy of internationalization and investment attraction that the Ministry and the office that is being created for this purpose have in the island of Fuertevenura”, says the island’s Minister of Economic Promotion, Manuel Hernández.

For her part, Virginian Sanz, Committee Manager, thanked the collaboration of the Council of Fuerteventura and the Technological Park in making these conferences possible “with the objective of facilitating an intensive training, especially for emerging young people in areas of research, consultancy and even in water treatment, among other issues, in addition of the fact that the school suggests new control measures that involve new technologies in textile and paint products based on nanoparticles and microparticles that release repellents in a controlled way to combat the mosquitoes bites”.

The professor Martin Eichner, from the Institute for Clinical Epidemiology and Applied Biometry, has worked on researches into epidemics such as SARS (sever acute respiratory syndrome), malaria, Ebola and dengue fever, among others, and will also present a software based simulator for preparing for a potential coronavirus pandemic.

The activity will provide two levels of training (in English): an advanced level for mathematicians, physicists, entomologists, biologists and chemists, and another for the rest of the participants.

The European Action IMAAC aims to implement new techniques to fight against the mosquito-borne diseases and involves more than 200 scientists, including experts in the fields of entomology, epidemiology, biostatistics, mathematics, biology, nanotechnology, chemical engineering and textile. In addition, more than 40 academic institutes, institutions and research centers from over 38 countries in and outside Europe will participate in this action. Further information can be found on the website www.imaac.eu.

This Training School, which will take place on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th of next week, will be attended by representatives of the Institute of Public Health of Albani, the University of Technology of Leppeenranta in Finland, the ENSTA ParisTech, the Koblenz Institute of Natural Science in Germany, the University of Patras in Greece, the American University in Malta, the Vrije University in Amsterdam, the Skopje Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy in North Macedonia, the Bialystok University of Technology in Poland, the Goce Delcev University in Macedonia, the University Maria Curie-Skłodowska in Lublin, the Italian Mosquito Control Association or the Anastasia Vector Control Association in Florida, the United States, among others.

“The vector-borne diseases contract economies and create poverty, that is why AFRIMAC and the Council of Fuerteventura do not hesitate to support the European Action IMAAC in the organization of this Training School”, highlights the president of the Island Council, Blas Acosta.