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  • Medical Entomology

Medical Entomology

Ref. 96003
CategoryCertificateCategoryHealthCategoryLife sciences
  • Duration: 2 months
  • Effort: 24 hours
  • Pace: ~12 hours/month
Which mosquitoes transmit malaria? Is the tiger mosquito the vector of the Zika virus? How is the transmission going? Find answers in the MOOC "Medical Entomology".
No open course runs

What you will learn

At the end of this course, you will be able to:

  • know what is medical entomology,
  • learn how do the most fearsome arboviral diseases be transmitted by tiny little insects,
  • discover what are our natural alliances against the transmission.

Description

Which mosquitoes transmit the parasites responsible for malaria? Is the Asian tiger mosquito vector of the Zika virus? How is the transmission from vectors to humans and from humans to vector? Here are some of the questions that will find answers in the MOOC Pasteur "Medical entomology".

About 25% of annual deaths worldwide are related to infectious diseases and 23% of them are directly related to vector-borne diseases. Vector-borne diseases have a zoonotic origin meaning that the pathogen is transmitted from animals to humans. Pathogens such as bacteria, parasites and viruses are primarily maintained within an enzootic cycle between populations of non-human primates or other mammals and zoophilic vectors.

This “wild” cycle sometimes spills over with infections of humans and domestic animals. Lifestyle changes, incursions by humans into natural habitats, and changes in agropastoral practices create opportunities that make the borders between wildlife and humans more permeable. Some vector-borne diseases have dispensed with the need for amplification in wild or domestic animals before being transmitted to humans. The design of control strategies for vector-borne diseases should be guided by research in emergence mechanisms in order to understand how a wild cycle can produce a pathogen that goes on to cause devastating urban epidemics.

The MOOC “Medical entomology” aims at providing the understanding in medical and veterinary entomology at the university level. It will teach the role of vectors in the functioning of ecosystems and, in a lot of cases, how to interrupt the vector transmission chain. It is organized from an entomological perspective, with each session devoted to a particular taxonomic group of insects and ticks.

Format

This MOOC is organized in 6 weeks of 3-6 sequences. Each sequence is composed of a 10 minutes video and a multiple choice test to help students check their understanding. The videos are in English, subtitled in French and English. All the tests are in English.

The MOOC students are invited to actively interact with the teaching team and the other students through the forum and during live stream hangouts.

Prerequisites

We recommend a good scientific background in biology (such as bachelor of science).

The MOOC is dedicated to students in biological or medical sciences, public health advisors (human and animal health), stakeholders in vector control, researchers and NGO members.

Assessment and certification

Please note, only the "Qualifying" formula gives entitlement to a certificate issued by the Pasteur Institute. There will be no certificate of successful follow-up, neither for the "Discovery" formula, nor for the "Qualifying" formula.

Course plan

Week 1: Introduction to medical entomology

  • Arthropods of medical and veterinary importance 
  • Orientation towards hosts in hematophagous insects
  • Hematophagy and transmission of pathogens 
  • Genetic and Environmental determinants of vector-pathogen interactions
  • Vector-parasite interactions: what is a population & why do we care
  • Insecticide resistance in insect vectors

Week 2: Mosquitoes and Arboviruses 

  • Zika, the new threat 
  • Dengue fever
  • Yellow fever 
  • Chikungunya, vector change and emergence 
  • Infection by West-Nile virus
  • Natural history of Rift Valley fever 

Week 3: Insect vectors and Parasites

  • History of malaria control strategies, a cycle of euphoria and apathy? 
  • The global malaria strategy 
  • Population genetics of Malaria vectors
  • Tsetse flies and African trypanosomiasis
  • Triatominae and Chagas disease

Week 4 - Other insects and related pathogens 

  • Culicoides biting midges and transmission of Blue tongue 
  • Fleas and plague
  • Black flies and onchocerciasis
  • Ticks: biology, medical and veterinary importance 
  • Phlebotomine sandflies 
  • Role of sand flies in the transmission of arboviruses

Week 5: New methods and concepts to approach vector-borne diseases 

  • Mathematical modelling of epidemics
  • Emerging and Re-emerging viruses, what did we learn? 
  • RNA virus, genetic variability and evolution

Week 6: Insect immunity, microbiome and miscellaneous 

  • Skin interface and arthropod borne diseases
  • RNAi-mediated antiviral immunity in insects
  • Importance of the insect microbiome in vector adaptation and pathogen transmission

Course runs

Archived

  • From Feb. 6, 2017 to March 20, 2017
  • From March 18, 2019 to April 29, 2019
  • From May 3, 2021 to July 2, 2021

Course team

Anna Bella Failloux

Categories

Anna-Bella Failloux is head of the Arboviruses and Insect Vectors unit, at the Institut Pasteur, Paris. Her main interest is to decipher the factors leading to the viral emergence by analyzing the vector competence.

CHRISTOPHE PAUPY

Categories

Christophe Paupy, is a medical entomologist, Researcher at IRD within the joint research unit "Infectious diseases and vectors: ecology, genetics, evolution and control.

PEI-SHI YEN

Categories

Pei-Shi Yen is a PhD in medical entomology who has a complete background in entomology and molecular biology. He is currently working in the Unit of Arboviruses and Insect Vectors at Institut Pasteur Paris, as a postdoctoral researcher.

Organizations

Institut Pasteur

License

License for the course content

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives

You are free to:

  • Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format

Under the following terms:

  • Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
  • NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
  • NoDerivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.

License for the content created by course participants

All rights reserved

"All rights reserved" is a copyright formality indicating that the copyright holder reserves, or holds for its own use, all the rights provided by copyright law.

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