Mass irradiation of adult Aedes mosquitoes using a coolable 3D printed canister

In the last decade, the use of the sterile insect technique (SIT) to suppress mosquito vectors have rapidly expanded in many countries facing the complexities of scaling up production and procedures to sustain large-scale operational programs. While many solutions have been proposed to improve mass production, sex separation and field release procedures, relatively little attention has been devoted to effective mass sterilization of mosquitoes. Since irradiation of pupae en masse has proven difficult to standardise with several variables affecting dose response uniformity, the manipulation of adult mosquitoes appears to be the most promising method to achieve effective and reliable sterilization of large quantities of mosquitoes. A 3D-printed phase change material based coolable canister was developed which can compact, immobilize and hold around 100,000 adult mosquitoes during mass radio sterilization procedures. The mass irradiation and compaction treatments affected the survival and the flight ability of Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti adult males but the use of the proposed irradiation canister under chilled conditions (6.7-11.3 °C) significantly improved their quality and performance. The use of this cooled canister will facilitate adult mass irradiation procedures in self-contained irradiators in operational mosquito SIT programmes.