HumBug

Nearly half of the world's population are at risk from malaria with the most vulnerable being young children under the age of five. It is a disease caused by a blood-borne parasite transmitted by blood-feeding female mosquitoes. Only approximately 70 (out of over 3500) species of mosquito are able to transmit human malaria so being able to detect, identify and count these 70 species in real time would be a huge boost in our fight against this debilitating disease.

The Humbug Project aims to develop a real-time detection system that alerts users to the presence of a vector species using acoustic monitoring devices. We have now received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to take this project a step further and test the HumBug system in rural communities in Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo in collaboration with the Ifakara Health Institute and the Kinshasa School of Public Health.

Through our Zooniverse page, we would like help in identifying whether the sound of a flying mosquito (that distinctive high pitched buzz/whine normally heard in a quiet bedroom just as you are about to drop off to sleep!) can be heard on a series of short audio clips recorded . Classifying these clips will provide us with invaluable data to train our mosquito detection algorithm and pave the way to creating HumBug: a ground-breaking mosquito monitor.