Raised houses reduce mosquito bites
 |
This paper reports a study conducted in Sao Tome off the West African country of Gabon to test whether building houses on stilts is
an effective technique for reducing occupant mosquito bites. The x-axis of the figure shows the monthly average number of mosquitoes
per light trap. The y-axis of the figure shows the monthly average number of mosquitoes landing per hour on a person sitting at the same location.
The caption incorrectly identifies the contents of the figure. The purpose of the figure was to establish the reliability of using light trap counts to infer
the number of actual bites that occupants would incur at that location. The authors
concluded:
"People in houses raised on stilts suffer fewer mosquito attacks than people living on the ground. House construction affects indoor exposure to malaria vectors in suburban São Tomé just as it does in rural Vietnam. Most An. gambiae were caught outside, at ground level and the least were caught inside houses built on stilts. Houses built at ground level had more mosquitoes in them than houses built on stilts. This can give rise to an 18-fold difference in exposure to malaria vectors between houses less than 10 m apart. Not unexpectedly higher mosquito numbers in light-traps were associated with houses in which there was an eaves gap." |
Data from:
Charlwood, J.D., Pinto, J., Ferrara, P.R., Sousa, C.A., Ferreira, C., Gil, V. and do Rosário, V.E. (2003)
"Raised houses reduce mosquito bites"
Malaria Journal 2003, 2:45 doi:10.1186/1475-2875-2-45
http://www.malariajournal.com/content/2/1/45
