Adult Anopheles Mosquito Distribution at a Low and High Malaria Transmission Site in Tanzania

Malaria parasites are only transmitted by female mosquitoes of the genus Anopheles; hence, the disease’s distribution is linked to that of the vector mosquitoes. As such, the goal of this study was to find out the spatial and temporal distribution of Anopheles mosquito adults in the research sites. This was a repeated cross-sectional ecological study that took place in Morogoro and Dodoma, Tanzania. Vacuum aspiration was used to collect mosquitoes both outside and inside human dwellings. All mosquito-related data was collected and entered into appropriate data collection forms. Female mosquitoes were recognized morphologically using Gillies and Coetzee morphological criteria, followed by PCR. In total, about 2742 Anopheles mosquitoes with an average collection of 18.21±1.12 per day were collected outside human houses of which 1717 (10.51±1.17) and 1025 (8.42±1.41) were collected from Morogoro and Dodoma, respectively. Of the captured mosquitoes, 89.0%, 10.0%, and 1.0% were recognized as Anopheles arabiensis, Anopheles gambiae s.s., and Anopheles quadrianulatus, respectively. The distribution varied significantly with seasons, whereby 302 (4.72±1.04) and 2440 (12.96±1.52) mosquitoes were captured in the cold-dry and warm-wet season, respectively (p