Anopheles bionomics in a malaria endemic area of southern Thailand

Background Ivermectin mass drug administration (MDA) could accelerate malaria elimination in the Greater Mekong Subregion. This study was performed to characterize the bionomics of Anopheles in Surat Thani province, Thailand. Methods Mosquitoes were collected via human landing collections between February and October 2019. Anopheles mosquitoes were morphologically identified to species. Primary Anopheles malaria vectors were dissected to assess parity status, and a subset were evaluated for molecular identification and Plasmodium detection. Results A total of 17,348 mosquitoes were collected during the study period; of these, 5777 were Anopheles mosquitoes. Morphological studies identified 15 Anopheles species, of which the most abundant were Anopheles minimus (s.l.) (87.16%, n = 5035), An. dirus s.l. (7.05%, n = 407) and An. barbirostris s.l. (2.86%, n = 165). Molecular identification confirmed that of the An. minimus s.l. mosquitoes collected, 99.80% were An. minimus (s.s.) (n = 484) and 0.2% were An. aconitus (n = 1), of the An. dirus (s.l.) collected, 100% were An. baimaii (n = 348), and of the An. maculatus (s.l.) collected, 93.62% were An. maculatus (s.s.) (n = 44) and 6.38% were An. sawadwongporni (n = 3). No Anopheles mosquito tested was Plasmodium positive (0/879). An average of 11.46 Anopheles were captured per collector per night. There were differences between species in hour of collection (Kruskal–Wallis H-test: χ2 =  80.89, P Conclusions The study area in Surat Thani province is an ideal location to evaluate the impact of ivermectin MDA on An. minimus parity