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Aedes aegypti é o principal vetor de dengue, Zika e chikungunya, doenças para as quais não existem vacinas totalmente eficazes. Alternativas de controle visando mitigar essas arboviroses são primordiais. Dentre essas, o controle mecânico aborda práticas de eliminação e/ou limpeza de criadouros do vetor. Neste relato, apresentamos e avaliamos criticamente ações realizadas pelo grupo, ocorridas entre 2016 e 2019, onde divulgamos informação científica clara através do diálogo com a população. Os métodos utilizados foram: 1) Palestras em escolas (público infantojuvenil) utilizando slides, fotos e vídeos; 2) Oficinas (público misto), stand com material in vivo do ciclo de vida do Aedes, jogos e desenhos. Analisamos dez palestras em escolas do ensino fundamental e médio e 20 oficinas realizadas em diferentes regiões do Brasil. Concluímos que tais ações e suas análises críticas devem ser realizadas continuamente para que sejam bem-sucedidas.

BACKGROUND Zika has emerged as a new public health threat after the explosive epidemic in Brazil in 2015. It is an arbovirus transmitted mainly by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. The knowledge of physiological, behavioural and biological features in virus-infected vectors may help the understanding of arbovirus transmission dynamics and elucidate their influence in vector capacity. OBJECTIVES We aimed to investigate the effects of Zika virus (ZIKV) infection in the behaviour of Ae. aegypti females by analysing the locomotor activity, egg production and viability. METHODOLOGY Ae. aegypti females were orally infected with ZIKV through an artificial feeder to access egg production, egg viability and locomotor activity. For egg production and viability assays, females were kept in cages containing an artificial site for oviposition and eggs were counted. Locomotor activity assays were performed in activity monitors and an average of 5th, 6th and 7th days after infective feeding was calculated. FINDINGS No significant difference in the number of eggs laid per females neither in their viability were found between ZIKV infected and non-infected females, regardless the tested pair of mosquito population and virus strain and the gonotrophic cycles. Locomotor activity assays were performed regardless of the locomotor activity in ZIKV infected females was observed, in both LD and DD conditions. MAIN CONCLUSIONS The lower locomotor activity may reduce the mobility of the mosquitoes and may explain case clustering within households reported during Zika outbreaks such as in Rio de Janeiro 2015. Nevertheless, the mosquitoes infected with ZIKV are still able to disseminate and to transmit the disease, especially in places where there are many oviposition sites.

The last decades have established D. melanogaster as the main multicellular model organism, and many researchers have been attracted to work with this insect due to its potential of combining a genetic and mollecular approach to investigate genetic expression, celullar biology and neurobiology. In this paper we discuss the use of this organism model in the study of the circadian clock in insect vectors.