CBS News
Peruvian research team works to track infectious disease in tropical regions
In the Peruvian Amazon, tropical diseases pose a growing risk – and scientists are turning to advanced technology, including drones and artificial intelligence, to try to stop outbreaks before they begin.
Iquitos, Peru cannot be reached by road because of the thick jungles and waters surrounding the city. Only planes or boats can reach the metropolis of about half a million people. All that water and vegetation also means an unwelcome guest: Mosquitoes.
Mosquitos can carry tropical diseases like malaria and dengue fever. In 2000, the World Health Organization recorded just half a million global cases of dengue fever, but nearly two decades later, the organization reported 5.2 million cases.
Gabriel Carrasco, who leads the research project at the Cayetano Heredia Peruvian University in Lima, Peru, said the spike in dengue fever shows how climate change affects developing, tropical nations more – even though those countries have a much smaller carbon footprint than industrialized nations.
“Events are more frequent. For example, El Niño is more frequent now than some years ago. (There are) flooding events (and) extreme heat events in areas where they were previously not reported as well,” Carrasco said.
CBS Saturday Morning
The aftermath of heat and heavy storms can result in ideal breeding grounds for mosquitoes.
Researchers like Carrasco and Bryan Fernandez use drones to take high-resolution photos in and around the Amazon, searching for water bodies that could be breeding sites for mosquitoes. The drones take photos every three seconds, and those images are turned into 3-D images that track water and deforestation. The team also uses weather sensors to track conditions, and small recording devices to monitor changes in what kind of areas are roaming the area.
That information is then fed into an A.I. model that “can predict where an outbreak can be,” Fernandez said.
“The idea now is how we can make those models much more accurate, much more detailed at the village level,” Carrasco explained.
The hope is to spread the technology to areas around the world with limited medicines, vaccines and doctors, Carrasco said. Knowing where the spread is likely can help areas deploy resources strategically. However, that model is still potentially years away, so Carrasco and other researchers will continue searching for answers and doing what they can to help the most vulnerable.
“What we are trying to do is help people in really poor areas to survive,” Carrasco said.
Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
An Orange County, California, jury found 26-year-old Sam Woodward guilty of first-degree murder with a hate crime enhancement Wednesday for the 2018 death of Blaze Bernstein, whose body was found days after he went missing, buried in a shallow grave at a Lake Forest park.
The jury reached its verdict after deliberating for just one day.
The judge hushed the courtroom as applause was heard during the reading of the verdict.
The prosecution had argued for Woodward to be found guilty of first-degree murder as a hate crime. Defense attorneys argued that Woodward should be convicted for voluntary manslaughter and acquitted of hate-crime allegations.
Jurors also were asked to consider second-degree murder. Closing arguments in the case had begun Friday, two-and-a-half months after the trial began in Santa Ana.
Following the reading of the guilty verdict, Bernstein’s parents shared their gratitude to the jury, to law enforcement and to the “army of supporters and volunteers” who were with them through the six-and-a-half-year ordeal.
“This was a great relief that justice was served and this despicable human, who murdered our son, will no longer be a threat to the public,” his mother Jeanne Pepper Bernstein said. “We are grateful to the jury for their service and their long days and weeks they spent in that service. Justice has been served.”
Sam Woodward was charged with stabbing Bernstein to death a little over six years ago. The Newport Beach man admitted to stabbing Bernstein, a 19-year-old gay, Jewish man, multiple times in 2018, but pleaded not guilty to murder with an enhancement for a hate crime.
Orange County prosecutor Jennifer Walker maintained to jurors that Woodward stabbed Bernstein, his former high school classmate, because he was gay, and buried his body at Borrego Park in Lake Forest.
“To dig a grave in that terrain, and bury and clean up and murder someone in an hour and half..that is not someone who is just going, ‘Oh..something happened and I need to figure it out.’ That is determined,” Walker said.
Bernstein, who was a college sophomore, was home visiting his family on winter break in January 2018 when he went missing after going with Woodward to a park in Lake Forest, California. Woodward picked Bernstein up from his parents’ home after connecting with him on social media.
Bernstein’s parents found his glasses, wallet and credit cards in his bedroom the next day when he missed a dentist appointment and wasn’t responding to texts or calls, prosecutors wrote in a trial brief.
Days later, Bernstein’s body was found buried at the park in a shallow grave.
The case took years to go to trial after questions were raised about Woodward’s mental state and following defense attorney changes. Woodward was deemed competent to stand trial in late 2022.
Woodward took the stand for several days and confessed to jurors that he stabbed Bernstein multiple times.
DNA evidence linked Woodward to the killing and his cellphone contained troves of anti-gay, antisemitic and hate group materials, authorities said.
“Now with the verdict in hand, we believe justice has been served and that Blaze’s memory will be honored through this outcome,” Pepper Bernstein said.
Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
