A FIELD STUDY OF MOUNTAIN MALARIA IN BRAZIL*

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The study was conducted in a heavily forested mountainous region northeast of Angra dos Reis, State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This is one of the strongholds of bromeliad-breeding, anopheline mosquitoes. Nidularia rutilans is considered to be one of the most favorable for mosquito production in the area studied. The predominant local anopheline was A. bellator, known in Brazil as Anopheles (Myzomyia) lutzi, others were A. eiseni (A. tibiamaculatus), A. (Myzo-rhynchella) lutzi, and A. (Cellia) argyritarsis. Examination of 201 persons living in railroad construction camps showed 39 infected individuals, of whom 10 were gametocyte carriers. Owing to the scarcity of larvae and pupae of A. bellator and to the delay in breeding out adults, wild mosquitoes were utilized in all feeding experiments. In a series of over 400 stomach dissections of this species, one cyst was found in a mosquito captured while biting a Plasmodium vivax gametocyte carrier. More than 150 of the mosquitoes examined were known to have fed on blood of gametocyte carriers. This mosquito, therefore, shows an extremely low grade of susceptibility to infection. The writer believes that A. bellator is neither capable of initiating an epidemic nor of keeping it going. To initiate the first new infections from a nucleus of relapse cases, it can be predicted that A. argyritarsis (possibly aided by A. (Myzorhynchella) lutzi) acts as the vector, in spite of its relative scarcity.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: