: The reemergence of malaria as an important anthroponosis has heightened concern as to whether sufficient understanding of the processes that determine transmission intensity exists. The lack of knowledge of interactions among the vectors, the disease, and the environment limits or prohibits the implementation of effective and sustainable malaria control. The long-term objectives of this proposal are: to explain to what extend vector heterogeneity impacts malaria transmission, identify the entomological transmission parameters that can assist or act as surrogates for parasitological and clinical malaria diagnosis, and determine which variables affect the process of malaria transmission including weather.
Specific Aim 1 establishes the role of different vectors in the transmission dynamics of malaria.
Specific Aim 2 tests whether the entomological transmission parameters can assist or act as surrogates for human-based diagnosis of malaria, examines if all the entomological transmission parameters need to be measured in order to evaluate change in malaria incidence and whether seasonal changes in weather alter the entomological transmission parameters. A highly malarious coastal riverine area has been selected for study in the State of Amapa, Brazil. The anopheline species transmitting malaria will be determined by the ELISA technique. The entomological transmission parameters, human landing catches, human blood index, parity rate, sporozoite rate will be calculated for each species. These variables will then be used to calculate survivorship, gonotrophic cycle duration, the entomological inoculation rate and the vectorial capacity. These variables will be correlated with malaria prevalence and incidence, and the major climatic variables (i.e., rainfall, temperature, and humidity). An appreciation of these dynamics is essential for risk assessment, disease monitoring, and for the building of malaria control strategies over heterogeneous landscapes, with vector mixes.
| Zimmerman, Robert H; Lounibos, L Philip; Nishimura, Naoya et al. (2013) Nightly biting cycles of malaria vectors in a heterogeneous transmission area of eastern Amazonian Brazil. Malar J 12:262 |
| Galardo, A K R; Zimmerman, R H; Lounibos, L P et al. (2009) Seasonal abundance of anopheline mosquitoes and their association with rainfall and malaria along the Matapi River, Amapa, [corrected] Brazil. Med Vet Entomol 23:335-49 |
| Galardo, Allan Kardec Ribeiro; Arruda, Mercia; D'Almeida Couto, Alvaro A R et al. (2007) Malaria vector incrimination in three rural riverine villages in the Brazilian Amazon. Am J Trop Med Hyg 76:461-9 |
| Zimmerman, Robert H; Galardo, Allan Kardec Ribeiro; Lounibos, L Philip et al. (2006) Bloodmeal hosts of Anopheles species (Diptera: Culicidae) in a malaria-endemic area of the Brazilian Amazon. J Med Entomol 43:947-56 |
