Natural Vertical Transmission by Stegomyia Albopicta As Dengue Vector in Brazil/Transmissao Vertical Natural de Stegomyia Albopicta como Vetor de Dengue No Brasil‪.‬

1. Introduction The mosquito Stegomyia albopicta (Reinert and Harbach, 2005) is among the most important arbovirus vectors in the world, particularly for Dengue viruses (DENV) (Gratz, 2004). DENV are members of the genus Flavivirus. They are plus-sense ssRNA viruses that cause dengue in humans. Their natural history suggests that biologically these viruses are highly adapted to their mosquito hosts and they were most likely mosquito viruses prior to becoming adapted to lower primates and humans (Fontenille and Toto, 2001). Dengue viruses are comprised of four closely related but antigenically distinct serotypes, designated DENV-1, DENV-2, DENV-3 and DENV-4 (Joshi, 2002). The spectrum of illness ranges from unapparent, mild disease to a severe and occasionally fatal hemorrhagic clinical picture (Johnson et al., 2002). DENV are transmitted to humans by Stegomyia mosquitoes and the two most frequent vector species are the peri-domestic and competitive S. aegypti and S. albopicta (Guzman and Kouri, 2002).