The Superfund Basic Research Program—A Time of Change

Background: Malaria is a former endemic problem in the Camargue, South East France, an area from where very few recent data concerning Anopheles are available. A study was undertaken in 2005 to establish potential malaria vector biology and dynamics and evaluate the risk of malaria reemergence. Methods: Mosquitoes were collected in two study areas, from March to October 2005, one week every two weeks, using light traps+CO2, horse bait traps, human bait catch, and by collecting females in resting sites. Results: Anopheles hyrcanus was the most abundant Anopheles species. Anopheles melanoon was less abundant, and Anopheles atroparvus and Anopheles algeriensis were rare. Anopheles hyrcanus and An. melanoon were present in summer, whereas An. atroparvus was present in autumn and winter. A large number of An. hyrcanus females was collected on humans, whereas almost exclusively animals attracted An. melanoon. Based on an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, almost 90% of An. melanoon blood meals analysed had been taken on horse or bovine. Anopheles hyrcanus and An. melanoon parity rates showed huge variations according to the date and the trapping method. Conclusion: Anopheles hyrcanus seems to be the only Culicidae likely to play a role in malaria transmission in the Camargue, as it is abundant and anthropophilic. Background In recent years, several vector-borne diseases have reemerged and spread in Europe with major health, ecological, socio-economical and political consequences. Most of these outbreaks are linked to global and local changes resulting from climate change, human induced landscape changes or human population activities. Malaria, a former European endemic disease recently struck European boundaries in countries such as Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey where it had been eradicated after World War II [1]. Only a few autochthonous cases have been reported recently in Europe, but these events indicate that the Published: 21 February 2007 Malaria Journal 2007, 6:18 doi:10.1186/1475-2875-6-18 Received: 2 November 2006 Accepted: 21 February 2007 This article is available from: http://www.malariajournal.com/content/6/1/18 © 2007 Ponçon et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.