Mosquitoes survillance as a monitoring tool revealed the presence of mosquito-borne West Nile viruses in Lorestan Province, southwestern Iran

Background: Mosquitoes species are known vector of importand diseases such as malaria, dengue, West Nile virus, zika, chikungunya, yellow fever, filariasis, tularemia, dirofilariasis, Japanese encephalitis, Saint Louis encephalitis, Western equine encephalitis, Eastern equine encephalitis, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, Ross River fever, Barmah Forest feverarbo viral diseases in the world.Malaria and infection of WN virus have been reported in Iran. Mosquitoessurveillance is the process of understanding the population dynamics and species distribution and considered a critical factor to vectorcontrol programs.Objectives: This study was occurred to provide mosquitoes fauna, larval habitat characteristics and potential vectors of west Nile virus.Materialsand Methods: This study was carried out in in Khoram Abad,Selseleh and DorehCheghini counties, Lorestan Province, southwestern Iran. Mosquito’s adults were collected using human and animal land collection, hand catch, New Jersey and CDC light traps and larvae by dipping methods. RT-PCR for detection of MN viruses among mosquito’s samples was performed.Results: Totally, 4805 mosquitoes of the two genera and eight species were collected and morphologically identified including Anopheles dthali, An maculipennissl, An sacharovi, An stephensi, An superpictus , Culexperexigus, Cx. pipiens, andCx.theileri., Culexpipiens complex was found the most common species in three counties. Monthly activity was start in the mid of May, with the main peak in August and was decreased in end of October .Culexpipiens larvae was found in both natural and artifitual of breeding places. Most of the larvae were collected from the natural habitats (63.2%) such as grasslands (16.5%), hoof-prints (35.7%), natural pools (47.8%), marshes, and others from artificial habitats (36.8%) including, irrigation channels (27.1%), wells (16.4%), discarded concrete tubes (35.2%), discarded tires (11.0%), and water-storage pools (10.3%). There was no detection for west Nile virus.Conclusion:It is the first formal entomological research which defines the monitoring of the presence of mosquito-borne West Nile viruses insouthwestern Iran. Interval mosquito-based arbovirus surveillance could be still suggested in other parts of Iran that represent major wintering and stopover sites forwild water birds migration.

Keywords:

West Nile virus , surveillance , mosquitoes , Southwestern Iran