Anthropophilic mosquitoes and malaria transmission at Edea, Cameroon

An entomological study was carried out during 1990 in the town of Edea in the south of Cameroon to study anthropophilic mosquitoes with special reference to malaria transmission. Man-biting mosquitoes were caught regularly during one night each month in two different districts: Bilalang which is a well planned suburb with 160 houses on a hill-top, provided with a piped water supply; and Pongo which is a densely urbanised suburb in a valley. From 188 man-nights 1030 mosquitoes were collected, comprising 700 Culex quinquefasciatus (68%), 262 Anopheles gambiae (25%) and others species (7%) belonging to the genus Anopheles, Mansonia, Culex and Aedes. The estimated annual biting rates of mosquitoes were 811 bites per man in Bilalang and 2,866 in Pongo. The estimated yearly malaria inoculation rates were 3.8 and 30.2 infective bites per man in Bilalang and Pongo, respectively. In different parts of Pongo district much variation existed; extreme values of the estimated yearly inoculation rate were zero and 86.3 in two houses 200 m apart, located on the top of a hill and in the bottom of a valley, respectively. This study is one of the first conducted on malaria transmission in a moderate sized African town; it shows that the mosquito populations are typically urban and differ greatly from rural ones.