Understanding Vector Biology: Implication to
Dengue Control
Abu Hassan Ahmad
School of Biological Science, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia.
Email: stegoculex@gmail.com
Abstract
Dengue virus infection is a growing public health problem with an estimated 50 million infections per year, which occur across 100 countries all over the continents with potential for further spread. The vector mosquitoes are Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus are responsible for transmitting the dengue viruses (DENV) to human beings. Aedes aegypti being cosmopolitan and the competent vector while Aedes albopictus is an invasive species spreading in Americas, Southern Europe, Africa and is native to Asia. The situation is being made worse by the climate change which affects the basic biology of these two mosquitoes. Larval breeding habitats, life cycles, feeding behavior, gonotrophic cycle, and mosquito abundance in relation to season are important parameters to be understood well before the mosque can be controlled and managed. After knowing all the biological parameter, early warning to predict the abundance of the mosquito should be made available through modeling such as GIS and ARIMA. Thus, outbreak of dengue could be prevented. In this case, Penang Island has high number of cases of dengue and abundance of Aedes ssp. The biology of the Aedes mosquitoes were studied in relation to the various aspects of challenges and implication to dengue transmission.
Keywords: Insect, mosquito, Aedes aegypti, Aedes albopictus, gonotrophic cycle