1.Household survey of container-breeding mosquitoes and climatic factors influencing the prevalence of Aedes aegypti (Diptera: Culicidae) in Makkah City, Saudi Arabia.
Al Thabiany AZIZ ; Hamady DIENG ; Abu Hassan AHMAD ; Jazem A MAHYOUB ; Abdulhafis M TURKISTANI ; Hatabbi MESED ; Salah KOSHIKE ; Tomomitsu SATHO ; Mr Che SALMAH ; Hamdan AHMAD ; Wan Fatma ZUHARAH ; Ahmad Saad RAMLI ; Fumio MIAKE
Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Biomedicine 2012;2(11):849-857
OBJECTIVETo investigate the prevalence of container breeding mosquitoes with emphasis on the seasonality and larval habitats of Aedes aegypti (Ae. aegypti) in Makkah City, adjoining an environmental monitoring and dengue incidence.
METHODSMonthly visits were performed between April 2008 and March 2009 to randomly selected houses. During each visit, mosquito larvae were collected from indoors and outdoors containers by either dipping or pipetting. Mosquitoes were morphologically identified. Data on temperature, relative humidity, rain/precipitations during the survey period was retrieved from governmental sources and analyzed.
RESULTSThe city was warmer in dry season (DS) than wet season (WS). No rain occurred at all during DS and even precipitations did fall, wetting events were much greater during WS. Larval survey revealed the co-breeding of Aedes, Culex and Anopheles in a variety of artificial containers in and around homes. 32 109 larvae representing 1st , 2nd, 3rd, and 4th stages were collected from 22 618 container habitats. Culicines was far the commonest and Aedes genus was as numerous as the Culex population. Ae. aegypti larval abundance exhibited marked temporal variations, overall, being usually more abundant during WS. Ten types of artificial containers were found with developing larvae. 70% of these habitats were located indoors. 71.42% of indoor containers were permanent and 28.58% was semi-permanent during WS. Cement tanks was the only container type permanent during DS. Ae. aegypti larval indices (CI, HI, BI) recorded were greater during WS.
CONCLUSIONSTaken together, these results indicate a high risk of dengue transmission in the holy city.
Aedes ; Animals ; Culicidae ; Dengue ; transmission ; Ecosystem ; Environmental Monitoring ; Larva ; Prevalence ; Saudi Arabia ; epidemiology ; Seasons ; Weather