Origin of blood meals in indoor and outdoor resting malaria vectors in western Kenya

Abstract

Blood meals were obtained from indoor and outdoor resting malaria vectors in three villages of western Kenya and tested by sandwich ELISA to determine host preferences and their human blood index (HBI). Anopheles gambiae s.s. collected indoors at Kisian village had a HBI of 0.97 while that of Anopheles arabiensis collected at Ahero was 0.23. However, the HBI of A. arabiensis varied depending on the availability of outdoor resting shelters. Most female A. arabiensis (98.9%) collected outdoors in granaries at Ahero had fed on cattle. Indoor-collected female Anopheles funestus had mainly fed on people (93.0%), but taken at least some of their blood (20.2%) from cattle. Although small numbers of A. arabiensis fed on sheep or goats and birds, none of the female A. gambiae s.s. and A. funestus tested had fed on these hosts. The absence of human-fed A. arabiensis in outdoor shelters indicated that exiting after feeding, a behaviour pattern that mitigates indoor insecticidal spraying, is not prevalent in this species in western Kenya.