Laboratory colonization of Anopheles aquasalis (Diptera: Culicidae) in Belém, Pará, Brazil.

Anopheles aquasalis Curry, a coastal malaria vector with a Neotropical distribution, was collected from Belém, Pará state, Brazil, and 500 adults per cage were maintained at the Instituto Evandro Chagas insectary at 26 -30 degrees C and 80 -90% RH, where they fed on a 10% domestic sugar solution and blood from white mice. Oviposition of the parental generation (P) occurred in fresh water in dark cups introduced into mosquito cages. After eclosion, 100 larvae per pan were reared in artesian well water (salinity 0.04 g liter(-10) and fed ground fish food until pupation. After force mating in the F1 generation, the eight subsequent generations were free mating. Mean larval mortality was < 1%, and the mean developmental time from eclosion to emergence was 7.7 d (F1), 7.6 d (F2), 8 d (F3), and 7.5 d (F4). The maximum daily production of pupae (from the fourth generation on) occurred on day 6 postoviposition.

Malaria vectors, epidemiology, and the re-emergence of Anopheles darlingi in Belém, Pará, Brazil.

An evaluation of malaria transmission and epidemiology in the Amazonian city of Belém over the last 70 years shows that (1) Anopheles darlingi, reported to be eradicated in 1968, reappeared in the mid 1990s, with a marked increase in abundance between 1997 to 1999 in two of three districts sampled; (2) An. darlingi and An. aquasalis are each implicated in current malaria transmission in different districts of the city; (3) mosquito species diversity (in Anopheles subgenus Nyssorhynchus) has increased from two in the 1930s to six in the 1940s to 10 in the 1990s; (4) there is no overall correlation between malaria case incidence and human population size from 1940 to 1996 in Belém; (5) however, the total number of malaria cases has increased significantly since the late 1970s and over the short term from 1993 to 1999; and (6) interestingly, the short term increases are due solely to cases of Plasmodium vivax infection; cases of P. falciparum malaria are declining (significantly for Pará state only). The reappearance of An. darlingi may be a result of the continued expansion of Belém into the surrounding forest in the 1990s. In the absence of preventative measures, we predict an increase in local outbreaks of malaria in the DAENT and DAICO districts where the population sizes of An. darlingi are increasing.