Habitat Targeting for Controlling Aquatic Stages of Malaria Vectors in Africa

Gu and Novak have recently highlighted the potential for improving the cost-effectiveness of mosquito larval control as a malaria prevention measure in Africa if the most productive habitats could be identified and targeted. We agree that this is in principle a valid hypothesis that probably holds true to some extent in real African field situations. However we do have three major reservations that have substantial implications for the development of operational mosquito control programs in the poorest nations of tropical Africa. In the absence of a contemporary evidence base for the application of source reduction in Africa we suggest the following caveats should be considered as the operational research community strives to translate the recent wave of historical review theoretical elucidation and supporting field ecology studies into sustainable cost-effective programs that kill mosquitoes and prevent malaria. (excerpt)