Abstract

Estimating the exposure of individuals to mosquito-borne diseases is a key measure used to evaluate the success of vector control operations. The gold standard is to use human landing catches where mosquitoes are collected off the exposed limbs of human collectors. This is however an unsatisfactory method since it potentially exposes individuals to a range of mosquito-borne diseases. In this study several sampling methods were compared to find a method that is representative of the human-biting rate outdoors, but which does not expose collectors to mosquito-borne infections. The sampling efficiency of four odour-baited traps were compared outdoors in rural Lao PDR; the human-baited double net (HDN) trap, CDC light trap, BG sentinel trap and Suna trap. Subsequently the HDN, the best performing trap, was compared directly with human landing catches (HLC), the ‘gold standard’, for estimating human-biting rates. HDNs collected 11–44 times more mosquitoes than the other traps, with the exception of the HLC. The HDN collected similar numbers of Anopheles (Rate Ratio, RR = 1.16, 95% Confidence Intervals, 95% CI = 0.61–2.20) and Culex mosquitoes (RR = 1.26, 95% CI = 0.74–2.17) as HLC, but under-estimated the numbers of Aedes albopictus (RR = 0.45, 95% CI = 0.27–0.77). Simpson’s index of diversity was 0.845 (95% CI 0.836–0.854) for the HDN trap and 0.778 (95% CI 0.769–0.787) for HLC, indicating that the HDN collected a greater diversity of mosquito species than HLC. Both HLC and HDN can distinguish between low and high biting rates and are crude ways to measure human-biting rate. The HDN is a simple and cheap method to estimate the human-biting rate outdoors without exposing collectors to mosquito bites.

Highlights

  • Estimating the human-biting rate, the number of mosquito bites per person per day or night, is a key metric used for quantifying the risk of infection with mosquito-borne pathogens.PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0138735 September 18, 2015Human-Baited Double Net Trap as Alternative to Human Landing CatchesAbbreviations: BG, Biogents; CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; CI, Confidence Interval; human-baited double net (HDN), Human-baited Double Net; human landing catches (HLC), Human Landing Catches; PDR, People’s Democratic Republic; RR, Rate Ratio; SD, Standard Deviation; WHO, World Health Organization

  • Overall HDN traps caught 34.48 (95% Confidence Interval, CI 18.87–66.67) times more mosquitoes than CDC light traps, 10.99 times more than BG sentinel traps and 43.48 times more than Suna traps

  • More Aedes mosquitoes, including Aedes albopictus, Anopheles mosquitoes and Culex mosquitoes were collected by the HDN traps than the three other traps during both the day and the night

Read more

Summary

Introduction

Estimating the human-biting rate, the number of mosquito bites per person per day or night, is a key metric used for quantifying the risk of infection with mosquito-borne pathogens.PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0138735 September 18, 2015Human-Baited Double Net Trap as Alternative to Human Landing Catches. Estimating the human-biting rate, the number of mosquito bites per person per day or night, is a key metric used for quantifying the risk of infection with mosquito-borne pathogens. Human-Baited Double Net Trap as Alternative to Human Landing Catches

Methods
Results
Conclusion
Full Text
Published version (Free)

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call