TOWNSVILLE CULICINES AS POSSIBLE VECTORS OF DENGUE AND ALLIED VIRUSES AMONG LOCAL FERAL FAUNA

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Abstract
SUMMARY: After an epidemic of dengue‐like fever in Townsville in 1952, investigations were made to try to determine the possible vectors of the virus from the presumptive reservoir of flying foxes and/or migratory birds of the seashore to man. This was done by determining which mosquito species had fed upon flying foxes, upon birds, and upon man.Two thousand and twenty female mosquitoes of 32 species were collected, either attracted to bait (man, horse and flying fox), were caught in light traps, or recovered from resting sites. Of these mosquitoes, 713 were engorged with blood and precipitin‐tested to determine the hosts upon which they had fed. The range of hosts was man, horse, ox, dog and fowl.Only five species, T. uniformis, A. vigilax, C. annulirostris, C. fatigans and C. sitiens were implicated as being possible vectors of the virus from the presumed reservoir to man, and of them the prime suspects were A. vigilax and C. sitiens, for these two species were attracted to flying fox bait, they had fed upon both man and fowl and they were associated with mangrove swamps, in which flying foxes “camp” during the day and in which migratory birds of the seashore roost at night.These findings are discussed with regard to the implicated vectors of Murray Valley encephalitis and Japanese B encephalitis, both of which are immunologically related to dengue fever.

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