Team:Brasil-USP/Practices/SaoCarlos8
São Carlos 8
Policy and Practices
Last southern summer, Brazil, as a tropical country, faced an enormous dengue fever epidemic problem. Dengue is transmitted by infected mosquitos within the genus Aedes, which lay its eggs in standing water containers. During brazilian summer, it is used to rain a lot and, if there are rain-water-exposed recipients, the chances of spreading dengue fever increases.
Based on that issue, Brasil-USP and UFSCAR-Brasil teams organized a play to be presented to children,and, in a playful manner, aware them about dengue's disease danger and transmission, as well as to counsel them on how to avoid a new epidemic. Our teams met children from ‘PROVIM Dom Luciano Mendes de Almeida’, a communitarian center intended to attend children from a not so wealthy neighborhood (São Carlos VIII) in São Carlos/SP, and presented them a play called “The Mighty Bacteria against Dengue”. At that presentation, it was possible to show them a little about dengue fever disease symptoms, a little about what one may do if under those symptoms and ways to prevent it of happening.
With that, we were able to introduce, in a very simple way, how science - in especial synthetic biology - could help. Both of our projects (UFSCar-Brasil team’s and Brasil-USP team’s) were represented at the play by two super bacteria: a mosquito-repellent one and a rubber-digester one.
By the end of the day, all those children were divided in groups in order to plan Crotalaria juncea, a plant that helps in dengue control. Children’s feedback was very positive. They liked being in contact with that theme (and also dressing the play costumes). It was such an amazing and enriching experience interacting with them.
Figure 1: Play elaborated by Brasil-USP and UFSCar-Brasil teams with the objective of increasing kids awareness about dengue disease