Life Table Analysis of Anopheles Gambiae (Diptera: Culicidae) in Relation to Malaria Transmission (Short Research Communications) (Report‪)‬

Malaria continues to be a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the tropics several years after the World Health Organization's roll back malaria (RBM) initiative. The disease is responsible for an estimated one million deaths per year, mainly in pregnant women and young children under the age of five, in Africa (1). In Nigeria, malaria accounts for 40-50% outpatient hospital visits, and estimates of child mortality indicate that at least 30% of Nigerian children die of malaria each year (2). Though vector control has been rightly recommended for reducing the burden of malaria (3), the success of the strategy in Nigeria has been hampered by inadequate knowledge of the biology of the anopheline vectors in the country. Again, most of the studies on the principal vector of the disease in Nigeria, i.e. Anopheles gambiae Giles (Diptera: Culicidae), are based on field ecology and behaviour of the species (4-7), with very little information available on the life cycle. It has been demonstrated that life table attributes of anopheline vectors play fundamental roles in the epidemiology of malaria; attributes such as fecundity, developmental and survival rates, longevity, etc. influence vector abundance and hence, disease transmission intensity (8).