Filming the unseen: building malaria out by addressing mosquito flight

The parasite that causes malaria is transmitted from person to person by Anopheles mosquitoes. In Africa the mosquitoes that transmit malaria mostly bite people in (or near) their houses. In the areas most affected by malaria, the majority of houses are built with features that don’t keep out mosquitoes (for example, open windows and open eaves), and the mosquitoes that transmit malaria enter houses through these features. It is becoming clear that people living in these types of houses are at a greater risk of getting malaria, which has led to an increased interest in ways to modify house designs as a way to control malaria. Still, there are many different options for improved house designs. For example, closing eaves completely might be more durable, but screening eaves might provide better ventilation in the house – an important consideration for people without electricity to run fans or air conditioning. To help guide these types of decisions, we need to have a better understanding of how mosquitoes behave near people’s houses.

The research team will set up a large enclosure in Malawi, made of durable screening, in order to release mosquitoes in a controlled environment where they can use a video-recording system to track their flight paths. This video-recording system will use special lighting (infra-red) so as not to affect the behaviour of the mosquitoes, and it will use four synchronised cameras to track their paths in 3D. There will be a house inside the enclosure, built to resemble a typical house in rural Malawi, and the flight paths of mosquitoes near the house will be observed. Over 30 nights of observations, the research team will adjust the eaves and windows of the house to fit five different designs, where the eaves and windows are either open, closed, or screened in different combinations. During each night, two volunteers will sleep inside the house to attract mosquitoes into the house. They will each sleep under an untreated bed net and next to a mosquito trap to collect mosquitoes that enter the house. The flight paths of the mosquitoes will be analysed to understand how they approach the house, where they spend their time near the house before entering it, where they typically enter the house, and how these behaviours change between the five different designs being tested.

BOVA Network Pump-Prime Projects

Vector Control

Mar 2018 — Mar 2019

Malawi

Building Out Vector-borne diseases in sub-Saharan Africa: the BOVA Network