Highly efficient dry season transmission of malaria in Thailand

Abstract

Man-biting collections were made for 7 consecutive nights per month for 24 months at 2 sites in a Thai village regularly treated with DDT and fenitrothion yet hyperendemic for Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax. Only Anopheles dirus was incriminated as a vector: 1.6% were infective and 2.4% were infected (median numbers of oocysts = 3.5). Transmission occurred within the village, which was located in groves of rubber and fruit trees, during the dry months of November to May only, when rates of parity (64%) and biting (2/man-night) were higher than during the monsoon (38% and 0.8%/man-night). Vectorial capacity and inoculation rates surged and then fell during 30 d at the end of the monsoon, quickly reinitiating transmission. Sporozoite species were identified using indirect fluorescent antibody tests or enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays: 76% were P. falciparum, compared to 78% of gametocytes; one mosquito was infected with both species. Vector survival and inoculation rates differed between similar sites 800 m apart. Dry season breeding occurred at the bottom of a deep, concrete-lined well. Much of the natural forest habitat of An. dirus in south-eastern Thailand that was once destroyed for farming is now being replaced with orchards; this ecological change may reintroduce malaria to a wide area.