Insecticide susceptibility status of the malaria vector Anopheles arabiensis in Khartoum city, Sudan: differences between urban and periurban areas

Vector resistance to insecticides is becoming a major obstacle to malaria prevention measures. A baseline survey was carried out in Khartoum city, Sudan, during September-November 2007, to map the insecticide susceptibility status ofAnophelesarabiensis and to examine the correlation with insecticide usage in urban agriculture. Susceptibility tests were conducted in 6 sentinel sites representing urban and periurban strata of the city. Mortality rates and knockdown times were calculated for 8 insecticides on a total of 9820 specimens. An. arabiensis was susceptible to bendiocarb (98.1%), propoxur (100%), fenitrothion (100%), deltamethrin (99.8%) and lambda-cyhalothrin (99.2%). Susceptibility rates were significantly different between urban and periurban sites for malathion (80.8% vs 56.0%), DDT (99.0% vs 95.0%) and permethrin (98.5% vs 96.3%). The 50% knockdown times were significantly higher in periurban than urban populations of An. arabiensis for deltamethrin, lambda-cyhalothrin and malathion.