Her master dissertation was under the theme “Study of insecticide resistance in Anopheles and its impact on malaria transmission in Ezenlassi, a village in the Centre Region of Cameroon”
On Wednesday 21 February 2024, Miss Auriane Nzuemi’s a Master student at Prof. NDO’s team at CRID, successfully defended her Master’s thesis in “Animal Biology, Parasitology and Ecology” with distinction at the University of Yaoundé 1.
Her study was carried out in Ezenlassi, a locality situated at the vicinity of the Yaoundé-Nsimalen International Airport. She found that two vectors namely Anopheles funestus and Anopheles gambiae sustain high malaria transmission in the locality. These vectors showing high resistance to pyrethroids insecticides are responsible of reduced efficacy of insecticide treated nets (ITNs) that are used to avoid human biting by malaria carrying mosquitoes. More worsening, the insecticide resistant genotypes carriers were more infected by Plasmodium falciparum parasite both at oocyst and sporozoite stages further indicating that insecticide resistance likely increase vector competence, a situation that can enhance malaria transmission.
This study highlights the persistence of high malaria transmission by insecticide-resistant vectors, due to their increased vectorial competence and their ability to survive exposure to the insecticides contained in ITNs. The findings call for urgent implementation of insecticide resistance management strategies.
