Three anopheline mosquitoes in Korea were studied for their abilities as vectors for Plasmodium vivax. The female mosquitoes of Anopheles lesteri, An. pullus and An. sinensis were allowed to suck malaria patient blood until fully fed, and they were then bred for 2 weeks to develop from malaria parasites to sporozoites. The result from the above confirmed the sporozoites in one An. lesteri of one individual and five An. sinensis of six individuals. We also reconfirmed that An. sinensis was the main vector to transmit malaria and An. lesteri as well as An. sinensis were able to carry Korean malaria parasites. Therefore, we propose that diversified study is needed to manage malaria projects.
Adult ; Animals ; Culicidae/*parasitology/*physiology ; Female ; Humans ; *Insect Vectors ; Korea ; Malaria/parasitology/transmission ; Male ; *Plasmodium vivax

To evaluate the factors that determine the transmission level of vivax malaria using vectorial capacity, entomological surveys were conducted from June to August, 2000. From 6 nights of human-bait collection in Paju, the human biting rate (ma) was counted as 87.5 bites/man/night. The parity of Anopheles sinensis from human baiting collections fluctuated from 41% to 71% (average 48.8%) of which the rate gradually increased as time passed on: 35.2% in Jun.; 55.0% in July; 66.2% in Aug. From this proportion of parous, we could estimate the probability of daily survival rate of An. sinensis to be 0.79 assumed with 3 days gonotrophic cycle and the expectancy of infective life through 11 days could be defined as 0.073. Blood meal analysis was performed using ELISA to determine the blood meal source. Only 0.8% of blood meals were from human hosts. We could conclude that An. sinensis is highly zoophilic (cow 61.8%). Malaria is highly unstable (stability index < 0.5) in this area. From these data, vectorial capacity (VC) was determined to be 0.081. In spite of a high human biting rate (ma), malaria transmission potential is very low due to a low human blood index. Therefore, we could conclude that malaria transmission by An. sinensis is resulted by high population density, not by high transmission potential. For this reason, we need more effort to decrease vector population and vector-human contact to eradicate malaria in Korea.
Animals ; Anopheles/*parasitology ; Human ; Insect Vectors ; Korea ; Malaria, Vivax/parasitology/*transmission ; Parity ; Plasmodium vivax/*pathogenicity/physiology ; Population Density

We investigated the seasonality of Anopheles mosquitoes, including its species composition, density, parity, and population densities of mosquitoes infected with the parasite in Ganghwa-do (Island), a vivax malaria endemic area in the Republic of Korea. Mosquitoes were collected periodically with a dry-ice-tent trap and a blacklight trap during the mosquito season (April-October) in 2008. Anopheles sinensis (94.9%) was the most abundant species collected, followed by Anopheles belenrae (3.8%), Anopheles pullus (1.2%), and Anopheles lesteri (0.1%). Hibernating Anopheles mosquitoes were also collected from December 2007 to March 2008. An. pullus (72.1%) was the most frequently collected, followed by An. sinensis (18.4%) and An. belenrae (9.5%). The composition of Anopheles species differed between the mosquito season and hibernation seasons. The parous rate fluctuated from 0% to 92.9%, and the highest rate was recorded on 10 September 2008. Sporozoite infections were detected by PCR in the head and thorax of female Anopheles mosquitoes. The annual sporozoite rate of mosquitoes was 0.11% (2 of 1,845 mosquitoes). The 2 mosquitoes that tested positive for sporozoites were An. sinensis. Malarial infections in anopheline mosquitoes from a population pool were also tried irrespective of the mosquito species. Nine of 2,331 pools of Anopheles mosquitoes were positive. From our study, it can be concluded that An. sinensis, which was the predominant vector species and confirmed as sporozoite-infected, plays an important role in malaria transmission in Ganghwa-do.
Animals ; Anopheles/*classification ; *Disease Vectors ; *Endemic Diseases ; Head/parasitology ; Malaria/*epidemiology/*transmission ; Plasmodium/isolation & purification ; Population Dynamics ; Republic of Korea/epidemiology ; Seasons ; Thorax/parasitology

We investigated population densities of mosquitoes infected with sporozoites in three highly epidemic areas of Josan-ri and Jangpa-ri (Paju City) and Dongjung-ri (Yeoncheon County) in Korea. Anopheline mosquitoes were collected from both indoors and outdoors by human baiting collection method during the period of the first week of June to the second week of September 1999. Total 13,296 female mosquitoes were collected and 8,650 (65.1%) were Anophelines. Thirty seven percent (3,199) of the Anopheline mosquitoes were captured outdoors and 63.9% (5,531) indoors. Employing a sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), we analyzed a total of 7,820 Anopheline mosquitoes and found that 7 Anopheline mosquitoes were infected with sporozoites. The positive rate in Josan-ri was 0.14% (5/3,500) and 0.15% (2/1,370) in Jangpa-ri. The total positive rate in all three surveyed areas was 0.09% (7/7,820). The mosquitoes infected with the sporozoites were detected on June 28th (n=2), July 5th (n=1), July 19th (n=1), August 9th (n=1), September 6th (n=1), and the last one on September 13th (n=1). They were all classified as Anopheles sinensis, which showed positive reaction in ELISA test. Therefore it might be concluded that A. sinensis plays an important role in re-emerging malaria transmission in Korea.
Animals ; Culicidae/*parasitology ; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay ; Female ; Human ; Korea/epidemiology ; Malaria, Vivax/epidemiology/parasitology/transmission ; Plasmodium vivax/*isolation & purification ; Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

OBJECTIVETo establish a minimum medical geographic information systems (GIS) database as a spatial decision supporting system (SDSS), and to use the database into public health practice in China.

METHODSSpatial data collected from different sources were standardized as decimal degree format, including: (1) satellite images covering areas of China; (2) digital maps of China in vector files; (3) diseases database and relevant models.

RESULTSNecessary satellite images for the database have been collected from NOAA AVHRR, Landsat TM, etc., including the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) images from AVHRR, earth surface temperature images from AVHRR, GTOPO30 DEM images from USGS and landuse images from USGS. The digital vector files for GIS analysis were collected including political (county, provinces, country) boundaries file, environmental (drainage, land cover, soil type) vector file, population data and climate data; Data on diseases mainly generated from survey or case reporting. Relevant models on transmission of Schistosoma japonicum and Plasmodium vivax, and models of Oncomelania hupensis and Anophores sinansis were developed, and the relevant environmental factors related to incidence of cancers were mapped, to test and verify those database.

CONCLUSIONThe database unified the data from different sources for users. Minimum medical data included in the database could be used in the practice of public health. It is expected that this database be used in a wider range.

Animals ; Anopheles ; parasitology ; China ; epidemiology ; Databases, Factual ; Disease Reservoirs ; Disease Vectors ; Ecology ; Geographic Information Systems ; Humans ; Malaria ; epidemiology ; prevention & control ; transmission ; Plasmodium vivax ; Satellite Communications ; Schistosomiasis japonica ; epidemiology ; prevention & control ; transmission ; Snails ; parasitology

We had an opportunity to evaluate a child who developed fever approximately two to three weeks after the open heart surgery for tetralogy of Fallot. His peripheral blood smear showed rings and various stages of Plasmodium vivax. The patient had received packed red blood cells during the surgery and postoperative care, one unit of which was later proved sero-positive for malaria. The possibility of malaria should be included in the differential diagnosis of the patients with unexplained fever after multiple blood product transfusions for the open heart surgery.
Animal ; Blood Transfusion/*adverse effects ; Cardiac Surgical Procedures ; Case Report ; Fever/parasitology ; Human ; Infant ; Korea ; Malaria, Vivax/*transmission ; Male ; *Plasmodium vivax ; Tetralogy of Fallot/*surgery

It is important to understand the dynamics of malaria vectors in implementing malaria control strategies. Six villages were selected from different sections in the Three Gorges Reservoir for exploring the relationship between the climatic factors and its malaria vector density from 1997 to 2007 using the auto-regressive linear model regression method. The result indicated that both temperature and precipitation were better modeled as quadratic rather than linearly related to the density of Anopheles sinensis.
Animals ; China ; Climate ; Culicidae ; physiology ; Insect Vectors ; physiology ; Lakes ; Linear Models ; Malaria ; parasitology ; transmission ; Models, Biological ; Plasmodium ; physiology ; Population Density ; Population Dynamics ; Rain ; Seasons ; Temperature

A 57-year old man who was admitted to an emergency room of a tertiary hospital with hemoptysis developed malarial fever 19 days later and then died from severe falciparum malaria 2 days later. He had not traveled outside of Korea for over 30 years. Through intensive interviews and epidemiological surveys, we found that a foreign patient with a recent history of travel to Africa was transferred to the same hospital with severe falciparum malaria. We confirmed through molecular genotyping of the MSP-1 gene that Plasmodium falciparum genotypes of the 2 patients were identical. It is suggested that a breach of standard infection control precautions resulted in this P. falciparum transmission between 2 patients in a hospital environment. This is the first report of a nosocomial transmission of falciparum malaria in Korea.
Africa ; Amino Acid Sequence ; Animals ; Cross Infection/parasitology/*transmission ; Fatal Outcome ; Humans ; Korea ; Malaria, Falciparum/parasitology/*transmission ; Male ; Merozoite Surface Protein 1/chemistry/genetics ; Middle Aged ; Molecular Sequence Data ; Plasmodium falciparum/chemistry/genetics/*isolation & purification ; Protozoan Proteins/chemistry/genetics ; Sequence Alignment ; Travel