Biology Department, University of North Carolina, 250 Bell Tower Drive, Genome Sciences Building, Chapel Hill, NC 27510, United States.
Division of Biological Sciences, University of Montana, 32 Campus Dr., Missoula, MT 59812, United States.
Acta Trop. 2024 Mar;251:107115. doi: 10.1016/j.actatropica.2023.107115. Epub 2024 Jan 5.
Identifying the current geographic range of disease vectors is a critical first step towards determining effective mechanisms for controlling and potentially eradicating them. This is particularly true given that historical vector ranges may expand due to changing climates and human activity. The Aedes subgenus Stegomyia contains over 100 species, and among them, Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus mosquitoes represent the largest concern for public health, spreading dengue, chikungunya, and zika viruses. While Ae. aegypti has been observed in the country of Zambia for decades, Ae. albopictus has not. In 2015 we sampled four urban and three rural areas in Zambia for Aedes species. Using DNA barcoding, we confirmed the presence of immature and adult Ae. albopictus at two sites: Siavonga and Livingstone. These genotypes seem most closely related to specimens previously collected in Mozambique based on mtDNA barcoding. We resampled Siavonga and Livingstone sites in 2019, again observing immature and adult Ae. albopictus at both sites. Relative Ae. albopictus frequencies were similar between sites, with the exception of immature life stages, which were higher in Siavonga than in Livingstone in 2019. While Ae. albopictus frequencies did not vary through time in Livingstone, both immature and adult frequencies increased through time in Siavonga. This report serves to document the presence of Ae. albopictus in Zambia, which will contribute to understanding the potential public health implications of this disease vector in southern Africa.
确定疾病媒介物的当前地理范围是确定控制和潜在消除它们的有效机制的关键第一步。鉴于历史上的媒介物范围可能会因气候变化和人类活动而扩大，这一点尤其正确。Stegomyia 亚属包含超过 100 种，其中埃及伊蚊和白纹伊蚊蚊子对公共卫生构成最大威胁，传播登革热、基孔肯雅热和寨卡病毒。虽然埃及伊蚊在赞比亚已经观察到几十年了，但白纹伊蚊尚未出现。2015 年，我们在赞比亚的四个城市和三个农村地区采集了 Aedes 物种样本。使用 DNA 条形码，我们在两个地点（西万戈和利文斯顿）确认了未成熟和成年白纹伊蚊的存在。这些基因型似乎与以前在莫桑比克收集的标本最为密切相关，基于 mtDNA 条形码。我们在 2019 年再次对西万戈和利文斯顿的地点进行了采样，再次观察到两个地点的未成熟和成年白纹伊蚊。除了 2019 年西万戈的未成熟阶段比利文斯顿高之外，两个地点的相对白纹伊蚊频率相似。虽然利文斯顿的白纹伊蚊频率没有随时间变化，但在西万戈，未成熟和成年的频率都随时间增加。本报告旨在记录白纹伊蚊在赞比亚的存在，这将有助于了解这种病媒在南部非洲的潜在公共卫生影响。
