Biology, Surveillance and Control of Mosquito Vectors

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R% = ^{C −T}

C

×100

(4.1)

where

• C – is the average number of the total number of mosquitos biting on the lower legs

of the persons with the control treatment (untreated).

• T – is the total number of mosquitos biting on the lower legs of the repellent-treated

subject (treated).

4.16

MOSQUITO LANDING RATES FOR THE EVALUATION OF REPEL-

LENT IMPREGNATED TEXTILES EFFICACY! A SIMPLE FIELD TRIAL

DURING 2019 SEASON IN SOME REGIONS OF ALBANIA

4.16.1

Mosquito biting activity

The biting activity of mosquito depends on many factors. Biting activity, the time and

the frequency of biting activity depend on the mosquito species, environmental and eco-

logical conditions and requirements etc. It is mostly depending on the mosquito species;

different mosquito species have different biting activity time. Sometimes the biting activity

is depending on the weather conditions, too. Bad weather condition can directly influence

in the timing of their biting activity for different mosquito species. Determination of the

biting activity of one mosquito species is a very important data, because this determine

the timing when mosquito species start to feed on blood. This will lead to nuisance for

the human population living in certain areas or touristic and recreation ones, limiting their

movement and activities. Furthermore, knowing of the biting activity of mosquito is very

important for the program of mosquito control with insecticides. This program must be

undertaken during the biting activity time of one certain mosquito species. In this way the

control insecticides program would be more efficient.

4.16.2

Main objectives

The Objectives of this research trial was aiming the species composition and presence,

biting activity of different mosquito species, evaluation on the human biting or landing

rates, as well as to determine the best testing time of each mosquito species according

their biting activity and gonotrophic cycles. At first, some criteria for the site collection,

as well as some principal habitat composition related to human recreational and touris-

tic areas were previously studied and described as follows: presence and density of hu-

man settlements, density of human/tourists in the respective site, distance from the ur-

ban/suburban/rural areas, history of mosquito presence in the past, mosquito collection

and their data analyzing throughout the years (2006 - 2019 in Albania), and possibility of

mosquito bite related to their habitat preferences and distribution in the country.