The Anopheles Mosquito, which can be found in the Graeme Hall Swamp in Christ Church, is blackish in colour.
The female bites between 5 and 7 p.m. and again from 10 p.m. to midnight. They suck and feed through the proboscis, but the males do not feed on blood.
The insects lie at a 180-degree angle or parallel to the water because they do not have a siphon tube like the Culex.
Disease
The Anopheles mosquito spreads malaria thriough the bite of an infected female.
“There is no malaria in Barbados,” said a senior health official who asked not to be quoted.
“We usually get three cases on a early basis. These are people from outside to be treated, who come in from Guyana or Trinidad.”
Malaria comes in five strains – plasmodium vivax, which is the most common form, ovale, malariae, knowlesi and falciparum, the most dangerous.
Between September 2006 and December 2009, Jamaica had 406 confirmed cases of plasmodium falciparum, the majority of which occurred in the capital Kingston. This was the first outbreak in 44 years, and after a public education programme, treatment and a multisectoral response, it was successfully brought under control.
According to the 2018 World Malaria Report produced by the World Health Organistion, there was an estimated 219 million cases in 2017, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa and India. The number of deaths from the disease has been on the decline, about 435 000 in 2017 compared to 607 000 in 2010. Children under age five are the most vulnerable.
Read more about the Culex Mosquito.
Read more about the Aedes Aegyti Mosquito.
(Nation Online)
