BackgroundAlthough insecticide-treated bed nets are effective tools, use often does not follow ownership. House structure and space arrangements may make the attempt to use bed nets difficult, especially for school age children. The objectives of this study were to explore whether an individual's sleeping arrangements and house structure affect bed net use in villages along Lake Victoria in western Kenya.MethodsSleeping arrangements of residents were directly observed for use of a bed net, use of a bed, and location. House size, number and types of rooms, bed availability, and residents' ages were estimated. The family heads and mothers were asked about the reason for not using bed nets. Individual bed net use was examined against age and sleeping arrangement. Net use at the household level was examined against four variables: bed availability, bed net availability, house size, and number of rooms.ResultsBed net use by children between five and 15 years of age was lower than that among the other age classes. However, age was dropped from the final model, and sleeping arrangement was significantly associated with net use. Net use was significantly associated with bed availability, number of rooms and their interaction.ConclusionNet use was affected by sleeping arrangement and availability of suitable locations for hanging nets, in addition to net availability. Most residents had likely not realized that sleeping arrangement was a factor in net use. The ease of hanging a net is particularly important for children.

No abstract

The number of Triatoma dimidiata found per rnan-hour of collection in each of the three mud-walled houses were 4, 1 and 37, In the third house 8 of T nitida were also collected.When the walls of these houses were dismantled, an additional 1 14, !41 and 307 of Tl dimidiata were cellected along with 34 of T nitida in the third house, In the palm-thatch roofed huts only Rhodnius Protixus were collected. The numbers per man-hour collected were 1 1, 27 and 26. When the roofs were dismantled and searched 75, 449 and 978 bugs were found in the respective houses. These results indicate that the numbers collected by the traditional method did not accurately refiect the population density in the houses, The collections indicate that the hiding places of 71 dimidiata and R, Prolixus were very lirnited within the houses, An average of 31% of T dimidinta were collected in only two dismantled block sections (2m2) which were close to the beds and chicken nest and 40% of R. protixus in the last house were obtained in the lower section of the palm-thatched roofs just abeve a bed, This area occupied only 4.2% area in total space of the house, These results suggest that insecticidal treatments would be most effective if they focused on the places where more bugs concentrate.

a part of the chromosome which involved M factor) to one of the autosomes (Sullivan, 1958(Sullivan, , 1961. At that time only the 2nd chromosome was known as the autosome which was involved in such a sex-limited inheritance and this was named T(Y, II). Later

Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) is an emerging disease endemic in East Asia. Transmitted to other organisms by infected ticks, the SFTS virus (SFTSV) and is endemic to Nagasaki in western Japan. However, epidemiological information regarding SFTSV in Nagasaki ticks has not been available to date. In this study, we began by examining the sensitivities of SFTSV gene detection by real-time RT-PCR and virus isolation in cultured cells and mice. These methods could detect SFTSV in the samples containing more than 4 × 100 ffu. Next, we attempted to isolate SFTSV and to detect viral gene in 2,222 nymph and adult ticks collected from May to August 2013 among seven regions of Nagasaki. However, neither virus isolation nor viral gene detection were confirmed in the tick pools. SFTSV positivity rates are considered to be very low in ticks, and viral loads are also very limited. Further investigations increasing the number of ticks and including larval samples as well as improved detection methods, may be required to find SFTSV-positive ticks in this region.