TY - JOUR
T1 - The relationship between house height and mosquito house entry
T2 - An experimental study in rural Gambia
AU - Carrasco-Tenezaca, Majo
AU - Jawara, Musa
AU - Abdi, Mahamed Y.
AU - Bradley, John
AU - Brittain, Otis Sloan
AU - Ceesay, Sainey
AU - D'Alessandro, Umberto
AU - Jeffries, David
AU - Pinder, Margaret
AU - Wood, Hannah
AU - Knudsen, Jakob B.
AU - Lindsay, Steve W.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Authors.
PY - 2021/5/26
Y1 - 2021/5/26
N2 - Most malaria infections in sub-Saharan Africa are acquired indoors, thus finding effective ways of preventing mosquito house entry should reduce transmission. Since most malaria mosquitoes fly less than 1 m from the ground, we tested whether raising buildings off the ground would prevent the entry of Anopheles gambiae, the principal African malaria vector, in rural Gambia. Nightly collections of mosquitoes were made using light traps from four inhabited experimental huts, each of which could be moved up or down. Mosquito house entry declined with increasing height, with a hut at 3 m reducing An. gambiae house entry by 84% when compared with huts on the ground. A propensity for malaria vectors to fly close to the ground and reduced levels of carbon dioxide, a major mosquito attractant, in elevated huts, may explain our findings. Raised buildings may help reduce malaria transmission in Africa.
AB - Most malaria infections in sub-Saharan Africa are acquired indoors, thus finding effective ways of preventing mosquito house entry should reduce transmission. Since most malaria mosquitoes fly less than 1 m from the ground, we tested whether raising buildings off the ground would prevent the entry of Anopheles gambiae, the principal African malaria vector, in rural Gambia. Nightly collections of mosquitoes were made using light traps from four inhabited experimental huts, each of which could be moved up or down. Mosquito house entry declined with increasing height, with a hut at 3 m reducing An. gambiae house entry by 84% when compared with huts on the ground. A propensity for malaria vectors to fly close to the ground and reduced levels of carbon dioxide, a major mosquito attractant, in elevated huts, may explain our findings. Raised buildings may help reduce malaria transmission in Africa.
KW - Anopheles gambiae
KW - housing
KW - malaria
KW - mosquitoes
KW - sub-Saharan Africa
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85106920487&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1098/rsif.2021.0256
DO - 10.1098/rsif.2021.0256
M3 - Article
C2 - 34034532
AN - SCOPUS:85106920487
SN - 1742-5689
VL - 18
JO - Journal of the Royal Society Interface
JF - Journal of the Royal Society Interface
IS - 178
M1 - 20210256
ER -
