Insect-Specific Flaviviruses from Collected Mosqitoes in An Giang Province, Viet Nam

An Giang province, located in the Mekong delta of Vietnam, has an intricate river system that has facilitated the development of wet rice cultivation and livestock production. However, the increasing of argicultual practise also increased the favorable environment for mosquito development. It also increases the risk of disease transmitted between animals and humans via mosquito vectors. There- fore, the aims of this study were (i) knowing the mosquito species currently cir- culated around animal and human shetles in the province (ii) detecting the virus naturally infected mosquito species in the research areas. The study was con- ducted by collecting mosquitoes in animal shetles and residental area. The collected mosquitoes were identified based on their morphological characte- ristics, then were used for virus isolation. A total 5,662 mosquitoes involving at least 15 species of 5 genera were collected. Culex were the major genus, other genera as Aedes, Anopheles, Armigeres, and Mansonia were also collected but lower percentage. Among those collected mosquitoes, Culex tritaeniorhynchus was the most dominant species (75.2%). Culex flavivirus and Quang Binh virus were isolated from the collected mosquitoes, however both isolated viruses were insect-specific flaviviruses and might not transmit diseases to human. KCI Citation Count: 0