FEEDING AND RESTING PATTERN OF MALARIA VECTORS IN THREE COMMUNITIES FROM SOUTHEAST NIGERIA

Abstract

Accurate knowledge of the feeding and resting time of malaria vectors is very crucial for malaria management, hence a 12-month longitudinal study was done to tackle the challenge of transmission of mosquito-borne diseases. Centre for Disease Control (CDC) light traps and the Human Landing Catch (HLC) methods were used to sample indoor and outdoor malaria vectors at Nibo, Mgbakwu and Enugwu-Agidi communities in Anambra State, Nigeria. Chi-square test was used to check for significant difference (P<0.05) between feeding and resting time and other parameters in the study. Result showed that malaria vectors were caught both outdoors and indoors which indicated that they have a crepuscular and concurrent resting/feeding time between 6 pm-12 am and 12 am - 6 am. This implies that the malaria vectors were non-specific in their feeding time, recording high peak feeding time of 24.4%, 18.3% and 17.9% between 6am - 12pm and 1am – 6am at Nibo, Mgbakwu and Enugwu-Agidi respectively. This heterogenic nature and behavior of malaria vectors may have caused a lot of hindrances to malaria control strategies and interventions deployed in the past. Therefore, proper understanding of behaviours of malaria vectors will help in evidence-based policy decision for strategic malaria control in Anambra State.

Keywords

• Malaria vector
• feeding and resting pattern
• Anambra State