Abstract
BackgroundNovel vector control methods that can directly target outdoor malaria transmission are urgently needed in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) to accelerate malaria elimination and artemisinin resistance containment efforts. Ivermectin mass drug administration (MDA) to humans has been shown to effectively kill wild Anopheles and suppress malaria transmission in West Africa. Preliminary laboratory investigations were performed to determine ivermectin susceptibility and sporontocidal effect in GMS Anopheles malaria vectors coupled with pharmacokinetic models of ivermectin at escalating doses.MethodsA population-based pharmacokinetic model of ivermectin was developed using pre-existing data from a clinical trial conducted in Thai volunteers at the 200 µg/kg dose. To assess ivermectin susceptibility, various concentrations of ivermectin compound were mixed in human blood meals and blood-fed to Anopheles dirus, Anopheles minimus, Anopheles sawadwongporni, and Anopheles campestris. Mosquito survival was monitored daily for 7 days and a non-linear mixed effects model with probit analyses was used to calculate concentrations of ivermectin that killed 50% (LC50) of mosquitoes for each species. Blood samples were collected from Plasmodium vivax positive patients and offered to mosquitoes with or without ivermectin at the ivermectin LC25 or LC5 for An. dirus and An. minimus.ResultsThe GMS Anopheles displayed a range of susceptibility to ivermectin with species listed from most to least susceptible being An. minimus (LC50 = 16.3 ng/ml) > An. campestris (LC50 = 26.4 ng/ml) = An. sawadwongporni (LC50 = 26.9 ng/ml) > An. dirus (LC50 = 55.6 ng/ml). Mosquito survivorship results, the pharmacokinetic model, and extensive safety data indicated that ivermectin 400 µg/kg is the ideal minimal dose for MDA in the GMS for malaria parasite transmission control. Ivermectin compound was sporontocidal to P. vivax in both An. dirus and An. minimus at the LC25 and LC5 concentrations.ConclusionsIvermectin is lethal to dominant GMS Anopheles malaria vectors and inhibits sporogony of P. vivax at safe human relevant concentrations. The data suggest that ivermectin MDA has potential in the GMS as a vector and transmission blocking control tool to aid malaria elimination efforts.
Highlights
Novel vector control methods that can directly target outdoor malaria transmission are urgently needed in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) to accelerate malaria elimination and artemisinin resistance contain‐ ment efforts
The implementation of body weight as an allometric function had a negligible impact on model fit (∆objective function value (OFV) = 0.516), but it was retained in the final model based on the strong biological prior
A numerical predictive check resulted in 2.62% and 0.56% of ivermectin observations below and above the simulated 95% prediction interval, respectively
Summary
Novel vector control methods that can directly target outdoor malaria transmission are urgently needed in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) to accelerate malaria elimination and artemisinin resistance contain‐ ment efforts. Novel vector control tools that target outdoor malaria transmission are urgently needed to support artemisinin resistance containment and malaria elimination efforts in the GMS. Ivermectin mass drug administration (MDA) has been suggested as a possible malaria parasite transmission control tool as it directly targets the vector at the point of human blood feeding. It is one of the few vector control measures that targets outdoor malaria transmission. In addition to direct mosquito-lethal effects, ivermectin suppresses development of P. falciparum in An. gambiae [13, 14]
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