{"doi":"10.1038/s41467-024-49080-9","title":"Plasmodium falciparum infection in humans and mosquitoes influence natural Anopheline biting behavior and transmission","abstract":"The human infectious reservoir of Plasmodium falciparum is governed by transmission efficiency during vector-human contact and mosquito biting preferences. Understanding biting bias in a natural setting can help target interventions to interrupt transmission. In a 15-month cohort in western Kenya, we detected P. falciparum in indoor-resting Anopheles and human blood samples by qPCR and matched mosquito bloodmeals to cohort participants using short-tandem repeat genotyping. Using risk factor analyses and discrete choice models, we assessed mosquito biting behavior with respect to parasite transmission. Biting was highly unequal; 20% of people received 86% of bites. Biting rates were higher on males (biting rate ratio (BRR): 1.68; CI: 1.28-2.19), children 5-15 years (BRR: 1.49; CI: 1.13-1.98), and P. falciparum-infected individuals (BRR: 1.25; CI: 1.01-1.55). In aggregate, P. falciparum-infected school-age (5-15 years) boys accounted for 50% of bites potentially leading to onward transmission and had an entomological inoculation rate 6.4x higher than any other group. Additionally, infectious mosquitoes were nearly 3x more likely than non-infectious mosquitoes to bite P. falciparum-infected individuals (relative risk ratio 2.76, 95% CI 1.65-4.61). Thus, persistent P. falciparum transmission was characterized by disproportionate onward transmission from school-age boys and by the preference of infected mosquitoes to feed upon infected people.","journal":"Nature Communications","year":2024,"id":422591,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":26,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9628,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":341823,"name":"Zena Lapp","orcid":"0000-0003-4674-2176","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1024375,"name":"Lucy Abel","orcid":"0000-0001-5857-1269","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":750147,"name":"Emmah Kimachas","orcid":"0009-0007-8487-9516","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1217566,"name":"Evans Omollo","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":731589,"name":"Elizabeth Freedman","orcid":"0000-0002-7093-535X","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1217567,"name":"Tabitha Chepkwony","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1216881,"name":"Mark Amunga","orcid":"0009-0001-7088-4994","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":560936,"name":"Tyler H. McCormick","orcid":"0000-0002-6490-1129","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":537601,"name":"Sophie Bérubé","orcid":"0000-0003-1307-4757","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1214852,"name":"Judith Mangeni","orcid":"0000-0001-7333-9329","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":107138,"name":"Amy Wesolowski","orcid":"0000-0001-6320-3575","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":669506,"name":"Andrew Obala","orcid":"0000-0003-3730-5484","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":437447,"name":"Steve M. Taylor","orcid":"0000-0002-2783-0990","position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":519400,"name":"Wendy Prudhomme O’Meara","orcid":"0000-0001-9455-3965","position":14,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":763427,"name":"Christine F. Markwalter","orcid":"0000-0002-5742-8847","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":57,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:57:51.642883Z","pmid":"38816383","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}