Examining the human infectious reservoir for Plasmodium falciparum malaria in areas of differing transmission intensity

A detailed understanding of the human infectious reservoir is essential for improving malaria transmission-reducing interventions. Here we report a multi-regional assessment of population-wide malaria transmission potential based on 1209 mosquito feeding assays in endemic areas of Burkina Faso and Kenya. Across both sites, we identified 39 infectious individuals. In high endemicity settings, infectious individuals were identifiable by research-grade microscopy (92.6%; 25/27), whilst one of three infectious individuals in the lowest endemicity setting was detected by molecular techniques alone. The percentages of infected mosquitoes in the different surveys ranged from 0.05 (4/7716) to 1.6% (121/7749), and correlate positively with transmission intensity. We also estimated exposure to malaria vectors through genetic matching of blood from 1094 wild-caught bloodfed mosquitoes with that of humans resident in the same houses. Although adults transmitted fewer parasites to mosquitoes than ch...

深入解析人类感染储库，对于优化疟疾传播阻断干预措施至关重要。本研究基于布基纳法索与肯尼亚疟疾流行区开展的1209次蚊子喂血实验（mosquito feeding assays），开展了全人群疟疾传播潜力的多区域评估。在两个研究区域内，共计鉴定出39名感染个体。在高流行场景中，感染个体可通过研究级显微镜检测识别（占比92.6%；25/27）；而在最低流行场景中，每3名感染个体里便有1名仅能通过分子技术（molecular techniques）检出。不同调查中的感染蚊子占比介于0.05%（4/7716）至1.6%（121/7749）之间，且与传播强度呈正相关。此外，本研究还通过对1094只野外捕获的吸血蚊子的血液与同住宅居民的血液进行基因匹配（genetic matching），估算了人类暴露于疟疾媒介的风险。尽管成人向蚊子传播的寄生虫数量少于ch...