Detection of Wuchereria bancrofti infection in mosquitoes in areas co-endemic with Brugia malayi in Balasore district, Odisha, India.

Lymphatic filariasis (LF) is a crippling and disfiguring parasitic condition. India accounts for 55% of the world's LF burden. The filarial parasite Wuchereria bancrofti is known to cause 99.4% of the cases while, Brugia malayi accounts for 0.6% of the issue occurring mainly in some pockets of Odisha and Kerala states. The Balasore (Baleswar) district of Odisha has been a known focus of B. malayi transmission. We employed molecular xenomonitoring to detect filarial parasite DNA in vectors. In six selected villages, Gravid traps were used to collect Culex mosquitoes and hand catch method using aspirators was followed for collection of mansonioides. A total of 2903 mosquitoes comprising of Cx. quinquefasciatus (n = 2611; 89.94%), Cx. tritaeniorhynchus (n = 100; 3.44%), Mansonia annuliferea (n = 139; 4.78%) and Mansonia uniformis (n = 53; 1.82%) were collected from six endemic villages. The species wise mosquitoes were made into 118 pools, each with a maximum of 25 mosquitoes, dried and transported to the laboratory at VCRC, Puducherry. The mosquito pools were subjected to parasite DNA extraction, followed by Real-time PCR using LDR and HhaI probes to detect W. bancrofti and B. malayi infections, respectively. Seven pools (6.66%) of Cx. quinquefasciatus, showed infection with only W. bancrofti while none of the pools of other mosquito species showed infection with either W. bancrofti or B. malayi. Although the study area is endemic to B. malayi, none of the vectors of B. malayi was found with parasite infection. This study highlights the ongoing transmission of bancroftian filariasis in the study villages of Balasore district of Odisha and its implications for evaluating LF elimination programme.