Confirmation that Plasmodium falciparum has aperiodic infectivity to Anopheles gambiae.

In preparation for field studies of transmission-blocking malaria vaccines, a study was carried out to determine whether P. falciparum infections obtained in An. gambiae blood-fed at 16.00 hours were quantitatively similar to infections obtained at 23.00 hours. Using a group of children aged 5-12 years from villages at Ahero, near Kisumu in Kenya, 71/74 (96%) of whom were found to be positive for P.falciparum parasitaemia, one batch of fifty colony-bred An.gambiae females were fed on volunteers at 16.00 hours and another batch at 23.00 hours. No statistically significant differences were found in the proportions of mosquitoes becoming infected, the numbers of children infecting mosquitoes or the mean numbers of malaria oocysts developing in mosquitoes blood-fed at the different times. Because mosquito infections obtained by day (16.00 hours) are equivalent in quantity to those obtained at night (23.00 hours), experimental infections can be carried out in the afternoon, when it is most convenient, rather than during the night.