Spatial Stratification of House Infestation by Triatoma infestans in La Rioja, Argentina
| Autor: | Hugo Américo Hrellac, D. E. Gorla, Ximena Porcasi, Silvia Catalá |
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| Rok vydání: | 2009 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. 80:405-409 |
| ISSN: | 1476-1645 0002-9637 |
| DOI: | 10.4269/ajtmh.2009.80.405 |
| Popis: | Vectorial transmission of Chagas disease has been decreasing over the past few decades because of effective vector control programs in the southern cone of South America. However, the disease is still actively transmitted within the Gran Chaco region. In this area, vector populations are abundant and highly prevalent in poor rural houses. This study analyses the spatial pattern of rural house infestation by Triatoma infestans in a 56,000 km 2 area in the province of La Rioja, Argentina, before the re-initiation of systematic activity on vector control intervention. Data on 5,045 rural houses show that infestation has high spatial heterogeneity, with highly infested localities concentrated in a few areas. House infestation has a negative significant relationship with locality size. Rural houses in the region are highly dispersed and this feature has been and will remain a challenge for any vigilance system to be installed in the region. 2 and is the second largest biome in the Americas after the Amazon region. An east-west rainfall gradient characterizes three subregions, with the humid chaco to the east, a dry chaco in the middle, and an arid chaco to the southwest, with annual rainfalls of 1,000, 600, and 350 mm, respectively (worldclim .org data, annual average for 1950-2000). The Gran Chaco of Argentina is occupied by 9.1 million persons (according to the last national census of 2001), 20% of whom are established in dispersed rural settlements, with an average human popula- tion density of less than 0.5 persons/km 2 . 2 Towards the southern tip of the Gran Chaco, the region of Los Llanos in the province of La Rioja, Argentina, has histori- cally been shown to be a hyper-endemic region for Chagas dis- ease. The area has a subsistence economy based on domestic animals (mainly goats, cows, and chickens) and wild fauna. A few communities in the eastern part of this region occupy an area with sufficient rainfall that enables cattle grazing all year round, but most of the Los Llanos region has rainfall that only allows the raising of goats because the rainy season is from |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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