Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Artigo Acesso aberto Produção Nacional Revisado por pares

BIBTEX RIS

Spatial distribution of arboviral mosquito vectors (Diptera, Culicidae) in Vale do Ribeira in the South-eastern Brazilian Atlantic Forest

2012; Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz; Volume: 28; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1590/s0102-311x2012000200003

1678-4464

Gabriel Zorello Laporta, Milton Cézar Ribeiro, Daniel Ramos, Maria Anice Mureb Sallum,

Animal Disease Management and Epidemiology

Mosquitoes are vectors of arboviruses that can cause encephalitis and hemorrhagic fevers in humans. Aedes serratus (Theobald), Aedes scapularis (Rondani) and Psorophora ferox (Von Humboldt) are potential vectors of arboviruses and are abundant in Vale do Ribeira, located in the Atlantic Forest in the southeast of the State of São Paulo, Brazil. The objective of this study was to predict the spatial distribution of these mosquitoes and estimate the risk of human exposure to mosquito bites. Results of the analyses show that humans are highly exposed to bites in the municipalities of Cananéia, Iguape and Ilha Comprida. In these localities the incidence of Rocio encephalitis was 2% in the 1970s. Furthermore, Ae. serratus, a recently implicated vector of yellow fever virus in the State of Rio Grande do Sul, should be a target for the entomological surveillance in the southeastern Atlantic Forest. Considering the continental dimensions of Brazil and the inherent difficulties in sampling its vast area, the habitat suitability method used in the study can be an important tool for predicting the distribution of vectors of pathogens.