The ability of Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes to bite through a permethrin-treated net and the consequences for their fitness.

ABSTRACT: Insecticide-treated bed-nets (ITNs) control malaria by keeping mosquitoes from reaching people sleeping under a net and by killing mosquitoes. Most tests of ITNs consider their overall epidemiological outcome without considering the different behaviors underlying their effects. Here we consider one of these behaviors: that mosquitoes can bite through the net if its user is touching it. We assayed the ability of an insecticide-sensitive strain of the mosquito Anopheles gambiae to bite through a permethrin-treated or an untreated net, and their subsequent survival and fecundity. Despite the irritancy of permethrin, 71% of the mosquitoes took blood through the ITN (vs. 99% through the untreated net). The ITN reduced the time spent biting, the blood-meal size and the fecundity, and it killed a

SUBMITTER: Hauser G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6544760 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature