Abstract
BackgroundMalaria around the China-Myanmar border is a serious health problem in the countries of South-East Asia. An. minimus is a principle malaria vector with a wide geographic distribution in this area. Malaria is endemic along the boundary between Yunnan province in China and the Kachin State of Myanmar where the local Anopheles community (species composition) and the malaria transmission vectors have never been clarified.MethodsAdult Anopheles specimens were collected using CDC light traps in four villages along the border of China and Myanmar from May 2012 to April 2013. Morphological and molecular identification of mosquito adults confirmed the species of Anopheles. Blood-meal identification using the female abdomens was conducted using multiplex PCR. For sporozoite detection in An. minimus, sets of 10 female salivary glands were pooled and identified with SSU rDNA using nested PCR. Monthly abundance of An. minimus populations during the year was documented. The diversity of Anopheles and the role of An. minimus on malaria transmission in this border area were analyzed.Results4,833 adult mosquitoes in the genus Anopheles were collected and morphologically identified to species or species complex. The Anopheles community is comprised of 13 species, and 78.83% of our total specimens belonged to An. minimus s.l., followed by An. maculatus (5.55%) and the An. culicifacies complex (4.03%). The quantity of trapped An. minimus in the rainy season of malaria transmission was greater than during the non-malarial dry season, and a peak was found in May 2012. An. minimus fed on the blood of four animals: humans (79.8%), cattle (10.6%), pigs (5.8%) and dogs (3.8%). 1,500 females of An. minimus were pooled into 150 samples and tested for sporozoites: only 1 pooled sample was found to have sporozoites of Plasmodium vivax.ConclusionAnopheles is abundant with An. minimus being the dominant species and having a high human blood index along the China-Myanmar border. The sporozoites in An. minimus were determined to be Plasmodium vivax with a 0.07-0.7% infection rate.
Highlights
Malaria around the China-Myanmar border is a serious health problem in the countries of South-East Asia
A total of 372 malaria cases were confirmed by microscopic blood examination from this Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) border region between April and December in 2011. 60.2% of these cases originated from Plasmodium vivax and the other 39.8% came from Plasmodium falciparum (39.3%) and P. ovale (0.5%)
Because of the small number of 37 An. minimus specimens collected in Daonong village throughout the year, a total of 187 morphologically-identified An. minimus s.l. were randomly selected for species confirmation by multiplex PCR followed by sequencing; all detected An. minimus specimens were confirmed as An. minimus based on the 184 bp fragment (Figure 2)
Summary
Malaria around the China-Myanmar border is a serious health problem in the countries of South-East Asia. Malaria is endemic along the boundary between Yunnan province in China and the Kachin State of Myanmar where the local Anopheles community (species composition) and the malaria transmission vectors have never been clarified. Nabang town established in 1996 is located in the western part of Yingjiang prefecture in the Yunnan province of China. It is a burgeoning treaty port with a total permanent resident population of 1,622 in 2010 and has a shared border with Lazan city in the Kachin state of Myanmar. In the Kachin State of Myanmar, the rate was 21.7 cases/1000 people in 2006, and this area had a high malaria-related mortality rate of 7.8 deaths/1000 people in 2005 [4]
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