mosquito vector biting and community protection in a malarious area, siahoo district, hormozgan, iran

background: use of bed-net continues to offer potential strategy for malaria prevention in endemic areas. local communi­ties are indispensable during design and implementation stages. methods: a cross-sectional study of 192 randomly selected inhabitants was carried out in malarious zone, siahoo dire­strict, hormozgan province, southern iran. in addition, we monitored human landing periodicity of main malaria vec­tors and as well as self-protection of inhabitant in the study area for a period of one transmission season between april to october 2006. results : the biting activities were seen throughout the whole night for three malaria vectors, an opheles fluviatilis, an. stephensi and an. dthali , and   an. fluviatilis exhibiting bimodal peaks, the first at midnight (0:00-1:00) and the other before dawn (5:00−6:00 am) but the maximum biting activity of an. stephensi was occurred at second quarter of night (11:00-12:00 pm). the majority of interviewers (83.3%) knew that malaria was transmitted by mosquitoes and 70.3% of them stated that bed-net is the best control measures. most subjects (62%) did not have a mosquito net. conclusion: study subjects were aware of an association between mosquito bite and malaria transmission. health work­ers at different levels of the health care delivery system should disseminate relevant information about self-protection to help community members to be involved more in malaria control.