Blood Meal Sources of <i>Anopheles</i> spp. in Malaria Endemic Areas of Honduras

• Main Authors: Denis Escobar, Krisnaya Ascencio, Andrés Ortiz, Adalid Palma, Ana Sánchez, Gustavo Fontecha
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-07-01
• Series: Insects
• Subjects: <i>Anopheles</i> spp.; blood meal source; malaria; Honduras; <i>Plasmodium</i> spp.
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4450/11/7/450

Malaria remains a life-threatening disease in many tropical countries. Honduras has successfully reduced malaria transmission as different control methods have been applied, focusing mainly on indoor mosquitoes. The selective pressure exerted by the use of insecticides inside the households could modify the feeding behavior of the mosquitoes, forcing them to search for available animal hosts outside the houses. These animal hosts in the peridomicile could consequently become an important factor in maintaining vector populations in endemic areas. Herein, we investigated the blood meal sources and <i>Plasmodium</i> spp. infection on anophelines collected outdoors in endemic areas of Honduras. Individual PCR reactions with species-specific primers were used to detect five feeding sources on 181 visibly engorged mosquitoes. In addition, a subset of these mosquitoes was chosen for pathogen analysis by a nested PCR approach. Most mosquitoes fed on multiple hosts (2 to 4), and 24.9% of mosquitoes had fed on a single host, animal or human. Chicken and bovine were the most frequent blood meal sources (29.5% and 27.5%, respectively). The average human blood index (HBI) was 22.1%. None of the mosquitoes were found to be infected with <i>Plasmodium</i> spp. Our results show the opportunistic and zoophilic behavior of <i>Anopheles</i> mosquitoes in Honduras.