Seasonal abundance, blood meal sources and insecticide susceptibility in major anopheline malaria vectors from southern Mauritania

Background: Malaria is endemic in the southernmost Sahelian zone of Mauritania where the major known mosquito vector is Anopheles arabiensis. Understanding seasonal population dynamics, feeding preferences and insecticide resistance status of these vectors in the area is essential to improve vector control measures implemented at a local scale. Here, malaria vector populations' bionomics is described in two sentinel sites located in the Sahelian zone of Mauritania. Methods: Between September 2014 and December 2016, longitudinal entomological surveys were conducted in Kobeni (15 degrees 49'N, 09 degrees 24'W) and Rosso (16 degrees 30'N; 15 degrees 48'W), two localities in the southern Sahelian zone of Mauritania. Adult mosquitoes were collected using indoor pyrethrum spray catch (PSC). Morphological and PCR-based methods were used to identify the species, detect Plasmodium parasites and analyze blood meals in individual mosquitoes. WHO insecticide susceptibility tests were performed with malathion (5%), bendiocarb (0.1%), permethrin (0.75%) and deltamethrin (0.05%) using female An. gambiae (s.l.) reared from larval and pupal collections from natural breeding sites. Results: A total of 2702 Anopheles mosquitoes were collected by PSC during the study period comprising 2291 Anopheles gambiae (s.l.), 376 Anopheles rufipes and 35 Anopheles pharoensis. In Rosso, all mosquitoes from the An. gambiae (s.l.) complex were molecularly identified as An. arabiensis (n = 455/455, 100%). Anopheles pharoensis represented 2.5% (n = 35/1420) of the specimens collected by PSC in Rosso. In Kobeni, An. arabiensis was dominant (n = 278/301, 92.3%) and occurred together with Anopheles coluzzii (n = 18/301, 6%) and An. gambiae (s.s.) (n = 3/301, 1%). Two An. coluzzii x An. arabiensis hybrids were also detected (0.7%) in Kobeni, and An. rufipes was the only other Anopheles species found resting indoors (n = 376/1277, 29.4%). There was an average of 5.6 and 3.6 indoor resting female An. gambiae (s.l.) per room in Kobeni and Rosso, respectively. Indoor resting female An. gambiae (s.l.) mosquitoes in both sites fed most frequently on bovine blood (35.5% in Rosso and 37% in Kobeni). The proportion of An. gambiae (s.l.) mosquitoes that took human blood was significantly higher in Kobeni (HBI = 37%) than in Rosso (HBI = 5.6%) and 32% of An. gambiae (s.l.) mosquitoes contained blood from more than one host species. None of the 1414 tested mosquitoes in both sites were found positive for Plasmodium spp. sporozoites. WHO insecticide resistance tests revealed resistance to permethrin in the An. arabiensis population from Rosso (mortality = 64%) as well as reduced mortality to deltamethrin (mortality = 97%). Conclusion: This study provides updated information on the composition and dynamics of the malaria vector system in southern Mauritania where malaria is endemic. Such data are a necessary prerequisite to devise and implement tailored malaria elimination strategies in areas of low residual transmission