Dengue is the most common and widespread mosquito-borne arboviral disease globally, causing >390 million infections and >20,000 deaths annually. There are no effective vaccines, preventive drugs or treatments. Therefore, current efforts to reduce dengue transmission rely primarily on mosquito vector control. Although most vector control methods used by national dengue control programs may temporarily reduce mosquito populations, there is little evidence that they affect transmission. There is a compelling need for innovative, effective and locally adapted approaches for sustainable vector control and monitoring, to which school children can be particularly relevant contributors. Schools have been engaged in national dengue control programs in several countries and school-based vector control research projects have been associated with better dengue knowledge uptake and contributed to improved school and community-based vector control activities.

Hence, in this project, we aim to involve middle school students and encourage them to become actors in dengue knowledge transfer to their communities and lead the delivery of vector control interventions and monitoring methods. Following this rationale, we believe that students can become pilots of decentralized vector surveillance and agents of sustainable disease control in line with recent new paradigms in integrated vector surveillance and control. This provides an opportunity to operationalize transdisciplinary research towards sustainable health development.

The MY-SCHOOOL project aims to improve knowledge of dengue and vector control in students and their parents by facilitating improved teaching capabilities by training of teachers and optimizing the dengue school curriculum thereby inducing active student involvement in community vector control and monitoring.