Abstract
Dengue is the most important mosquito-borne viral infection disease in Sri Lanka triggering extensive economic and social burden in the country. Even after numerous source reduction programmes, more than 30,000 incidences are reporting in the country every year. The last and greatest dengue epidemic in the country was reported in July, 2017 with more than 300 dengue related deaths and the highest number of dengue incidences were reported from the District of Gampaha. There is no Dengue Virus (DENV) detection system in field specimens in the district yet and therefore the aim of the study is development of entomological surveillance approach through vector survey programmes together with molecular and phylogenetic methods to identify detection of DENV serotypes circulation in order to minimize adverse effects of imminent dengue outbreaks. Entomological surveys were conducted in five study areas in the district for 36 months and altogether, 10,616 potential breeding places were investigated and 423 were positive for immature stages of dengue vector mosquitoes. During adult collections, 2,718 dengue vector mosquitoes were collected and 4.6% (n = 124) were Aedes aegypti. While entomological indices demonstrate various correlations with meteorological variables and reported dengue incidences, the mosquito pools collected during the epidemic in 2017 were positive for DENV. The results of the phylogenetic analysis illustrated that Envelope (E) gene sequences derived from the isolated DENV belongs to the Clade Ib of Cosmopolitan genotype of the DENV serotype 2 which has been the dominant stain in South-East Asian evidencing that a recent migration of DENV strain to Sri Lanka.
Highlights
Dengue is an arthropod-borne viral infection found the throughout tropical and subtropical regions of the world
The highest percentage of positive containers for immature stages of dengue vector mosquitoes in the high risk areas was reported from the Akbar Town study area (8.5%, n = 108) from which 17.6% was positive for Ae. aegypti (n = 19)
No significant difference was observed in the distributions of total mosquito count and counts of dry, wet and total positive containers in the high risk study areas compared to the control area according to the Kruskal-Wallis test with Bonferroni post-hoc analysis
Summary
Dengue is an arthropod-borne viral infection found the throughout tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Over the past 50 years, dengue has become the most rapidly spreading disease in the world with a 30-fold magnitude rise of global incidences. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 50 billion people have been infected with dengue around the globe with 50–100 million annual incidences [1]. New dengue virus 2 detected in epidemic in July, 2017 in Sri Lanka data, and the authors confirm that they did not have any special access to this data which others would not have. All E-gene sequences are available at NCBI database, with the accession numbers for these sequences available within the Supporting Information files
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