title: Insecticide resistance in malaria vector mosquitoes at four localities in Ghana, West Africa.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Malaria vector control programmes that rely on insecticide-based interventions such as indoor house spraying with residual insecticides or insecticide treated bed nets, need to base their decision-making process on sound baseline data. More and more commercial entities in Africa, such as mining companies, are realising the value to staff productivity of controlling malaria transmission in their areas of operation.This paper presents baseline entomological data obtained during surveys conducted for four mining operations in Ghana, West Africa.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The vast majority of the samples were identified as Anopheles gambiae S form with only a few M form specimens being identified from Tarkwa. Plasmodium falciparum infection rates ranged from 4.5 to 8.6% in An. gambiae and 1.81 to 8.06% in An. funestus. High survival rates on standard WHO bioassay tests were recorded for all insecticide classes except the organophosphates that showed reasonable mortality at all locations (i.e. >90%). The West African kdr mutation was detected and showed high frequencies in all populations.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The data highlight the complexity of the situation prevailing in southern Ghana and the challenges facing the malaria vector control programmes in this region. Vector control programmes in Ghana need to carefully consider the resistance profiles of the local mosquito populations in order to base their resistance management strategies on sound scientific data.
authors.affiliation: Malaria Entomology Research Unit, School of Pathology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
authors.forename: Richard H
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Hunt
authors.forename: Godwin
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Fuseini
authors.forename: Steve
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Knowles
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Stiles-Ocran
authors.forename: Rolf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Verster
authors.forename: Maria L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Kaiser
authors.forename: Kwang Shik
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.forename: Lizette L
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Koekemoer
authors.forename: Maureen
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Coetzee
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000852:Anopheles / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000469:parasitology; D004199:Disease Vectors; D005869:Ghana; D019476:Insect Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D007305:Insecticide Resistance; D007306:Insecticides / Q000494:pharmacology*; D009154:Mutation; D010963:Plasmodium falciparum / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D016019:Survival Analysis
chemical_list: D019476:Insect Proteins; D007306:Insecticides