Biology, Surveillance and Control of Mosquito Vectors

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The HLC would be better performed in more urban areas related to altitudes, vicinity

from sea, marsh lands and lagoons. To have a better efficacy test of repellent treated textiles,

the HLC would be better performed throughout the night and the day, to see the diurnal and

nocturnal biting activity of mosquito species in a specified are. This could provide better

data for the test efficacy, knowing the most nuisance species and the time they bite more

aggressively.

4.18

PROSPECTIVE FOR FUTURE STUDY

During the future summer seasons, aiming would be to perform the test of treated t-

shirt or other treated textiles. We agreed to test the treated t-shirts with two concentrations

of repellent, but, more different repellent concentrations would be tried. The treated t-shirts

efficacy tests in Albania, would be performed in the same sites where the evaluation of the

mosquito landing bites and their biting activity was done before. A group of 3 - 4 people

(depending on the availability going to the field) will participate to this study.

We think to try and test the t-shirts in three different regions starting from the Southern

part of the country in the coastal areas, close to the border with Greece, following with the

central part of along the coast, as follows (subject to change more or less in accordance

with the possibility for field trips:

• The first study site could be Butrinti National Park, an isolated forest of different

oaky dense forest, where species like Aedes caspius, less the Asian tiger mosquito

Aedes albopictus, and rarely several other mosquito species of the Culiseta, other

Aedes, Culex and other mosquito genera.

• The second study site could be set at the pine forest of Divjaka (Lushnje) beach, a site

with a sandy ground composition and a dense forest of pine with dense herbaceous

and shrubby vegetation, which is an optimal habitat for the mosquito Aedes caspius

in Albania.

• The third study site could be set at the poplar forest of the Villas areas in the urban

city of Durres along the coast and the beach zone with a sandy ground composi-

tion and a dense forest of poplar with dense herbaceous and shrubby vegetation,

which is an optimal habitat for the mosquito Culex pipiens and Aedes albopictus in

Albania.

4.18.1

The protocol used to test the repellent treated t-shirts

The protocol for testing the repellent treated t-shirts, is still developing and we aim to

finalize it before starting the test in the field. Anyway, we aim to use three or four people,

where one of them will wear an untreated t-shirt without repellent to use it as the control to

compare it with the bites with the two or three other people. The people will stay 10−15m

far from each other wearing the specific t-shirts for each, and start count their bites in the

same interval of 10 minutes. Each of the persons involved in the study will wear a long-

sleeved t-shirt and will cover all the other bared parts of the body like hands, legs, face