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Updated: Oct 7, 2025
A Multi-detection Assay for Malaria Transmitting Mosquitoes
Published on: February 28, 2015
Molecular detection of Mansonella mariae incriminates Simulium oyapockense as a potentially important bridge vector
Túllio Romão Ribeiro da Silva1, Luiz Henrique de Aquino Narzetti2, James Lee Crainey3
1Instituto Leônidas e Maria Deane/ILMD/Fiocruz Amazônia, Laboratório de Ecologia de Doenças Transmissíveis na Amazônia, Manaus, AM, Brazil; Programa de Pós-graduação Stricto Sensu em Biologia Parasitária, Instituto Oswaldo Cruz/IOC/FIOCRUZ, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.
Objective:
To assess the emergent zoonotic disease risk posed by the voracious human-biting blackfly species Simulium oyapockense in the peripheral regions of an expanding urban centre situated deep in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest.
Methods:
We performed nine human landing catches at three periurban sites surrounding the Brazilian Amazon town of São Gabriel da Cachoeira. Using the detection of non-human primate filarial parasites as an indicator of the zoonotic disease threat posed by a biting insect, we screened 3328 S. oyapockense blackflies for the presence of zoonotic filarial DNA with an ITS-1 PCR assay and Sanger sequencing.
Results:
Between 98 and 100% of the biting insects captured during our nine collections were identified as S. oyapockense; at our three collection sites and during our three seasonally-distinct collections this species was captured at rates between 28 and 294 blackflies per hour. PCR screening of the march-collected S. oyapockense detected infectious-stage (L3) Mansonella mariae parasites (which are only known to infect non-human primates) in >0.15% of the tested head samples.
Conclusions:
Our results show that residents of the periurban regions of São Gabriel da Cachoeira are routinely exposed to the bites of S. oyapockense blackflies which have previously fed on non-human primates.
