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Citizen science may be a key in fight against malaria
A co-designed citizen science program was conducted for one year with over a hundred volunteers in rural Rwanda. These volunteers collected mosquitoes with hand-made traps and reported levels of mosquito nuisance and confirmed malaria cases.
Both volunteers and non-volunteers gained knowledge and skills about the use of malaria control measures in general, and mosquito species in particular among volunteers. This shows that a citizen science program has the potential to not only engage those who are directly involved in the collection and submission of citizen science data, but also improves community health by addressing public health problems, hence contribute to Sustainable Development Goal #3. The observations provided insight in where the malaria hotspots were. The active involvement and interaction with citizens results in the strongly required broad societal support for implementing malaria control actions in collaboration with local health authorities.