Malaria infection in mosquitoes decreases the personal protection offered by permethrin-treated bednets.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Insecticides targeting adult mosquitoes are the main way of controlling malaria. They work not only by killing mosquitoes, but also by repelling and irritating them. Indeed their repellent action gives valuable personal protection against biting mosquitoes. In the context of malaria control this personal protection is especially relevant when mosquitoes are infectious, whereas to protect the community we would prefer that the mosquitoes that are not yet infectious are killed (so, not repelled) by the insecticide. As the infectious stage of malaria parasites increases the motivation of mosquitoes to bite, we predicted that it would also change their behavioural response to insecticides. RESULTS:With two systems, a laboratory isolate of the rodent malaria Plasmodium berghei infect

SUBMITTER: Thievent K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5936035 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature