AI Article Synopsis

  • Semi-field experiments are crucial for assessing new malaria vector control methods by estimating personal protection against mosquito bites, but they struggle to differentiate between mosquito mortality and repellency effects.
  • A new stochastic model utilizing time-stratified HLC data helps estimate the effects of outdoor biting inhibitors on both repellency and mosquito killing, analyzed using Bayesian hierarchical modeling.
  • Results indicate that transfluthrin-treated eave ribbons primarily reduce mosquito populations through killing and disarming, with potential reductions in vectorial capacity of Anopheles arabiensis ranging from 41% to 96%, depending on the disarming-to-killing ratio.

Article Abstract

Background: Semi-field experiments with human landing catch (HLC) measure as the outcome are an important step in the development of novel vector control interventions against outdoor transmission of malaria since they provide good estimates of personal protection. However, it is often infeasible to determine whether the reduction in HLC counts is due to mosquito mortality or repellency, especially considering that spatial repellents based on volatile pyrethroids might induce both. Due to the vastly different impact of repellency and mortality on transmission, the community-level impact of spatial repellents can not be estimated from such semi-field experiments.

Methods: We present a new stochastic model that is able to estimate for any product inhibiting outdoor biting, its repelling effect versus its killing and disarming (preventing host-seeking until the next night) effects, based only on time-stratified HLC data from controlled semi-field experiments. For parameter inference, a Bayesian hierarchical model is used to account for nightly variation of semi-field experimental conditions. We estimate the impact of the products on the vectorial capacity of the given Anopheles species using an existing mathematical model. With this methodology, we analysed data from recent semi-field studies in Kenya and Tanzania on the impact of transfluthrin-treated eave ribbons, the odour-baited Suna trap and their combination (push-pull system) on HLC of Anopheles arabiensis in the peridomestic area.

Results: Complementing previous analyses of personal protection, we found that the transfluthrin-treated eave ribbons act mainly by killing or disarming mosquitoes. Depending on the actual ratio of disarming versus killing, the vectorial capacity of An. arabiensis is reduced by 41 to 96% at 70% coverage with the transfluthrin-treated eave ribbons and by 38 to 82% at the same coverage with the push-pull system, under the assumption of a similar impact on biting indoors compared to outdoors.

Conclusions: The results of this analysis of semi-field data suggest that transfluthrin-treated eave ribbons are a promising tool against malaria transmission by An. arabiensis in the peridomestic area, since they provide both personal and community protection. Our modelling framework can estimate the community-level impact of any tool intervening during the mosquito host-seeking state using data from only semi-field experiments with time-stratified HLC.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7819244PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13071-020-04560-xDOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

transfluthrin-treated eave
16
eave ribbons
16
semi-field experiments
12
vector control
8
control interventions
8
malaria transmission
8
semi-field
8
semi-field studies
8
personal protection
8
spatial repellents
8

Similar Publications

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!