Unveiling malaria vectors: species complex and surveillance insights from Sundergarh, Odisha, India.

BACKGROUND

Malaria is one of the most infectious life-threatening vector-borne diseases affected by climate change. Because of the emerging climate change problem, it was thought prudent to identify prevalent mosquito species and find the malaria parasite's presence in field-collected mosquitoes in Odisha.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

The study was undertaken at four villages in the Rourkela, Sundergarh district of Odisha, India, from January 2018 to January 2020, generating entomological and climatic data. Field-collected mosquitoes were processed, and DNA was extracted, followed by multiplex PCR for differentiation of sibling species for Anopheles culicifacies and Anopheles fluviatilis mosquitoes. Enzyme-Linked immunosorbent assay was also performed for detection of circumsporozoite proteins of Plasmodium. Sequencing was performed, and a phylogenetic tree was constructed using the neighbor-joining method.

RESULTS

For Anopheles culicifacies, 43.25% of mosquitoes belonged to sibling species C, followed by species B, A, and D. Similarly, for Anopheles fluviatilis, sibling species T was found in 57.5%, followed by species U and S. Sibling species were confirmed on the difference in the sequences of conserved regions of the 28S rDNA.

CONCLUSIONS

We can conclude that sibling species C (Anopheles culicifacies) was predominant in Rourkela, and sequencing further confirmed the presence of parasites (Plasmodium vivax) in Anopheles culicifacies as sibling species C.