**5.4 Perceived characteristics of released mosquitoes**

Overall, 55.7% (39/70) reported that the mosquitoes released by the scientific team were females, 5.7% (4/70) told that they were male mosquitoes, 7.1% (5/70) both male and female mosquitoes, and 31.4% (22/70) did not know. To obtain a deep understanding of lay knowledge, people were asked to give their daily narratives of the presence and co-habitations of the released mosquitoes. Categories were developed to structure the verbatim provided by the participants, as shown in the following **Table 2**, top-down in order of most frequently mentioned.

*Community Engagement and Social Assessment for* Wolbachia*-Based Suppression of Natural… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106137*


#### **Table 2.**

*Narrative descriptions of the released mosquitoes.*

#### **5.5 Perceived benefits and disadvantages**

Overall, the majority of the interviewed perceived a positive benefit of the intervention, although there were people that did not acknowledge any advantage of this (**Table 3**).

In addition, the participants related their experiences about the advantages and benefits of the project.

*"The truth is that it is a great benefit to reduce the risk of diseases in San Pedro. There are not too many mosquitoes that bite." (Man interviewed, 22 years old)*

*"It is about preventing mosquito biting. Is the benefit that we learnt." (Women interviewed, 60 years old)*

*"You must keep informed to avoid misunderstandings and gossip and the people will understand and acknowledge what you are doing." (Women interviewed, 36 years old)*

*"We have to work with the people that believe those released mosquitoes are the bad ones because they are stubborn." (Women interviewed, 67 years old)*


**Table 3.** *Perceived benefits of the project.*

On the other hand, 64.3% (45/70) of the participants reported no complaints about the released mosquitoes, while 35.7% (25/70) did. In-deep questions were asked to the last group about the reasons for the disadvantages and that must be addressed with a specific context. The two main reasons were identified here, mosquito's nuisance at bedtime (35.5%, 25/70) and an increase of mosquitoes during the releasing days (37.2%, 26/70). In the community, families usually keep the doors and windows open during the day and rarely use bed nets or house-screening [15]. Thus, this facilitates the entrance of mosquitoes at any time given.

During the fieldwork, ethnographic data collected evidenced the concern of the elders of the community about the transmission of the *Wolbachia* to other organisms, such as bees and humans. In San Pedro Chimay, there is a strong presence of peasants that work in corn fields and beekeeping. In their experience, crop pests and diseases for bees are a huge problem. Therefore, they were worried about the unknown organism carried by released male mosquitoes.

#### **5.6 Social acceptance of the project**

At the beginning of the project (2017), a study was carried out addressing cultural barriers, strengths, and social acceptance of the intervention [15]. At the end of the project (2020), people were asked again if they would be interested in continuing to participate. 94.3% (66/70) of participants agreed, 4.3% (3/70) said no, and 1.4% (1/70) were not sure. The positive perception of the interviewed were supported by many experiences such as that the project was helping to improve the community's health, other general benefits perceived (knowledge about domestic prevention against mosquitoes), and they were very interested in the main effect perceived, the reduction of the mosquitoes in their houses.

#### **6. Conclusion**

This research was conducted to evaluate the perceived benefits and disadvantages of an IVM control of the *Ae. aegypti* that included the release of male mosquitoes for the suppression of the mosquito population in Yucatan, Mexico. Previous studies reported a good social acceptance [15] and the educational approach regarding this innovative method [16]. As main conclusion, the population interviewed for this chapter, considered that the intervention is an important initiative, and as with every new strategy it comes with some challenges to be addressed.

#### **6.1 Mosquitoes: Friend or foe?**

For decades the purpose of the vector control programs was focused on killing the mosquitoes rather than increasing their number. The change of paradigm, from "kill to rear and release" demands a strong community engagement [36–43]. Hence, the main challenge is not only the social acceptance of the early stages but the community support and social license until the closure of the projects based on these new biological vector control methods.

In Yucatan, Mexico, there are socio-anthropological studies about diseases, such as dengue, chikungunya, and Zika virus [23, 24, 25, 28, 29]. However, more research is required with an ethno-entomological approach, that is, focused on the local cultural understandings of the mosquitoes besides the learned knowledge from the

#### *Community Engagement and Social Assessment for* Wolbachia*-Based Suppression of Natural… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106137*

government campaigns [27, 30]. Research conducted in Australia, based on innovative biological control methods, showed important perceived differences in the characteristics of wild mosquitoes [38]. Although education activities about the taxonomic differences between male and female mosquitoes were explained to participants at the release site, still residents mentioned the similar appearance among different species of mosquitoes. In our study, ethnographic data evidenced that the participants identified at least one or two characteristics of the *Ae. aegypti*; however, residents that could not be involved in the project (workshops and demonstrative release activities), hardly reported the basic aspects of the mosquitoes [16]. This is a very important issue because the strategic discourse of "reduce *Ae. aegypti* mosquitoes" can be confused with "reduce all the species of mosquitoes" in the community, and, as a result, misunderstandings on the efficacy of the method might arise.

#### **6.2 Community engagement for IIT-SIT: Challenges and experiences**

According to the CDC's principles for community engagement, the transversal path is key to all the phases, processes, and actions for the implementation of the project. All three steps of this model had to be reinforced along the development of the activities.

The goals need to be presented in different formats and for several audiences (adults, children, and elders) and languages (Mayan-Spanish). Also, unexpected political scenarios took place during the beginning, such as political elections at national and local level, which required changes in the leader-engagement strategies because the whole municipal committee was new, and all the political landscape changed. Therefore, the bound of trust initially constructed demanded the inclusion of other informal actors in the arena, and with this unrepresented groups of the community emerged.

To respect the self-determination of the community, there was a flexible partnership collaboration to build that could include more social groups, even with political and cultural differences, to become part of the decision-making process. The very sustainability of the project was once again challenged by another unexpected situation, that is, the COVID-19 pandemic. We conducted an additional social evaluation addressing if the leaders will be agreeing that the project could be continued, with minimal activities (entomological surveillance and mosquito-releasing activities following the proper preventive measures), but the result was that they preferred to put it in stand by the project until the pandemic event ends.

Finally, it is important to highlight that social license was a key factor for the success of the intervention and should be part of innovative paradigms for mosquitovector control strategies involving community engagement. In this chapter, we outlined the Mexican experience of community engagement and social assessment in implementing a *Wolbachia*-based strategy intended to suppress the natural population of *Ae. aegypti*.

#### **Acknowledgements**

Abdiel Martin-Park is supported by the Catedras-CONACYT program. Research funding was provided by Fondo Mixto Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT) (México)–Gobierno del Estado de Yucatán (project YUC-2017- 2103-01-556) and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) (project

AID-OAA-F-16-00082). In addition, special thanks to the people of San Pedro Chimay and the personnel of the Ministry of Health for supporting during the project and field activities.
