Entomological survey and infection rates of Plasmodium falciparum and Wuchereria bancrofti in mosquito populations in the Kainji Lake Area, Nigeria

An entomological study was conducted on vectors of malaria and bancroftian filariasis in Kainji Lake Area of Niger State, Nigeria. A total of 1,545 mosquitoes were collected in this study, and of this, anopheline mosquito represented 72.6% of the total collected while culicine mosquito comprised only 27.4%. Anopheles gambiae complex constituted 60% of the mosquitoes collected. A further identification with PCR showed that An. arabiensis and An. gambiae s.s were 34.5% and 28.5 % (of the mosquitoes collected) respectively. Plasmodium falciparum sporozoites rate of 6.7% for An. arabiensis and 4.6% for An. gambiae s.s were obtained by ELISA. None of the 1,122 anopheline tested was positive for Plasmodium malariae. Dissection of Anopheles, Culex and Aedes species revealed infective larvae of Wuchereria bancrofti only in Anopheles gambiae s.s. with an overall infection rate of 0.5%. These results indicate that the current malaria vector control using pyrethroid treated nets also stand a chance of controlling the vector of bancroftian filariasis in communities where both diseases co-exist. Keywords: mosquito, vector, malaria, filariasis, Kanji, Nigeria. Nigerian Journal of Parasitology Vol. 27 2006: pp.58-6