Abstract
BackgroundOne method of collecting mosquitoes is to use human beings as bait. This is called human landing collection and is a reference method for evaluating mosquito density per person. The Mbita trap, described by Mathenge et al in the literature, consists of an entry-no return device whereby humans are used as bait but cannot be bitten. We compared the Mbita trap and human landing collection in field conditions to estimate mosquito density and malaria transmission.MethodsOur study was carried out in the highlands of Madagascar in three traditional villages, for 28 nights distributed over six months, with a final comparison between 448 men-nights for human landing and 84 men-nights for Mbita trap, resulting in 6,881 and 85 collected mosquitoes, respectively.ResultsThe number of mosquitoes collected was 15.4 per human-night and 1.0 per trap-night, i.e. an efficiency of 0.066 for Mbita trap vs. human landing. The number of anophelines was 10.30 per human-night and 0.55 per trap-night, i.e. an efficiency of 0.053. This efficiency was 0.10 for indoor Anopheles funestus, 0.24 for outdoor An. funestus, and 0.03 for Anopheles arabiensis. Large and unexplained variations in efficiency were observed between villages and months.ConclusionIn the highlands of Madagascar with its unique, highly zoophilic malaria vectors, Mbita trap collection was poor and unreliable compared to human landing collections, which remains the reference method for evaluating mosquito density and malaria transmission. This conclusion, however, should not be extrapolated directly to other areas such as tropical Africa, where malaria vectors are consistently endophilic.
Highlights
One method of collecting mosquitoes is to use human beings as bait
Malaria transmission is ordinarily calculated as the product of the density of anopheline vectors per human and the infectivity of this anthropophilic fraction of mosquitoes
The aim of this study was to evaluate the success of Mbita traps in sampling mosquitoes in the field conditions of Malagasy highlands with special references to two indicators, the anopheline vector species and the anopheline density per human
Summary
One method of collecting mosquitoes is to use human beings as bait. This is called human landing collection and is a reference method for evaluating mosquito density per person. The Mbita trap, described by Mathenge et al in the literature, consists of an entry-no return device whereby humans are used as bait but cannot be bitten. We compared the Mbita trap and human landing collection in field conditions to estimate mosquito density and malaria transmission. Up to now all-night stationary direct bait collections ( called human landing collections) with a human acting both as bait and collector has been the reference method for evaluating mosquito density per human.
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