The landscape as a regulating agent of Culicidae diversity and the dynamics of anopheline vectors in rural settlements with cases of malaria in the Brazilian Amazon

The structural and functional modifications of the landscape, caused by human actions, present a new challenge to epidemiological surveillance activities in the Brazilian Amazon. This process has formed a new heterogeneous mosaic of natural and use/occupation units in the matrix formed by the Amazon Forest. The absence of effective medical treatments and a vaccine for malaria makes controlling the populations of mosquito vectors the measure capable of limiting the transmission of pathogens in these areas. In this context, entomological research is part of the construction of more effective epidemiological surveillance practices in the Amazon Region and in the expansion and dissemination of scientific knowledge. The ecological and social conditions of the region, susceptible to the circulation of arboviruses and, in greater numbers, protozoa, added to the alterations made by man in the local landscape, increase the probabilities of human-vector-infectious agent contact. Entomological research will make it possible to evaluate the role that other species of the genus Anopheles play in the dynamics of human malaria transmission, especially in extradomiciliary environments, both in areas with intense transmission and in those where sporadic autochthonous cases are reported. In this context, the main question of the project is how the structure of the landscape, in particular the fragmentation of the natural forest, interferes with the metrics of Culicidae biodiversity and how it is associated with the dynamics of transmission of protozoa of the genus Plasmodium in rural settlements in the Amazon Brazilian.

Project Details

Measurement of Transmission
Vector Control

May 2015 — Oct 2018

Brazil