Wind direction and proximity to larval sitesdetermines malaria risk in Kilifi District in Kenya

摘要

Studies of the fine-scale spatial epidemiology of malaria consistently identify malaria hotspots,comprising clusters of homesteads at high transmission intensity. These hotspots sustaintransmission, and may be targeted by malaria-control programmes. Here we describe thespatial relationship between the location of Anopheles larval sites and human malaria infectionin a cohort study of 642 children, aged 1–10-years-old. our data suggest that proximity tolarval sites predict human malaria infection, when homesteads are upwind of larval sites, butnot when homesteads are downwind of larval sites. We conclude that following oviposition,female Anophelines fly upwind in search for human hosts and, thus, malaria transmissionmay be disrupted by targeting vector larval sites in close proximity, and downwind to malariahotspots.