The EYWA initiative has been well received by various stakeholders in the Public Health domain as well as private companies and research institutions from countries around the Globe (Greece, Italy, Serbia, Germany, USA, Brazil, India) with 32 letters of intent/support having been received from them. Here some of the feedbacks: "The region of Central Macedonia represents historically one of the most affected regions in terms of vector-borne diseases in Europe .... In 2010 the plain of Thessaloniki was again in the epicenter of the first most important human West Nile virus epidemic of lineage2. During the 2020 season, EYWA system provided the region of Central Macedonia with predictions for mosquito adult population and WNV epidemiological risk on different geographical and time scale (regional unit/ municipality/village, monthly/ weekly/ daily) from March to September 2020. These predictions were integrated in the operational planning of the mosquito control project of the region of Central Macedonia with very satisfactory results optimising the risk knowledge for our region, the deployment of our monitoring networks, the guidance of information campaigns and the implementations of the appropriate response actions. Early Warning Systems such as the EYWA should be integrated into the strategic and operational planning for the management of vector control programmes, as they contribute essentially to the prevention of outbreaks, mitigating their impact on local, regional, and international scales and provide support to existing control efforts". - Mr. Michalidis Konstantinos, Head of Directorate of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Support, Region of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece.
"In a whole, the predictions of the EYWA system seem to be reliable and valuable for the overall organisation and the optimisation of entomological surveillance and vector control actions in the frame of the Mosquito Control project of the Region of Western Greece. An interesting part of the system constitutes the "Mosquito Vision" application for the prediction of nuisance from mosquitoes which ran from late summer 2020 until October in the region of Western Greece...Based on the above, we declare our willingness to contribute to the EYWA initiative for the period 2021-2025 by sharing our monitoring and surveillance data concerning mosquito adult abundances and WNV circulation in sentinel chickens". Nektarios Farmakis, Head of Region of Western Greece. |