Prof. Badria Babiker El-Sayed Project Manager, TMRI Symposium on: Advances in Parasitology “Education and Research in Parasitology in the service of Mankind”

Sterile Insect Technique SIT is a biological control method in which huge numbers of males of a harmful insect are produced in a factory, made infertile by exposure to ionizing radiation and released into the native habitat to mate with natural females which will then cannot be able to produce progeny

Release Area: Northern state, Sudan Isolated One Anopheles species, A. arabiensis

Laboratory Activities for Mass Production of Mosquito

Small cages and mass rearing cage of adults

Haemotek device for blood feeding of adult females

The egg stage

The larva stage

Larvae reared in trays

Larval feeding

Mosquito larvae/pupae separator

The pupa stage Sieving of pupae Vortexing for separation

Estimation of pupae

Irradiation of pupae

Separation of sterile male from female Females are killed by feeding them on blood contaminated with ivermectin ml of 1000 ppm stock solution of ivermectin is added to 300 ml of blood. 50 ml of it is added to each feeding plate which is kept until all female feed. The remaining unfed and alive females are removed by aspirator.

Packing of irradiated males for transport to the field

A strategy for surveillance of sterile male of Anopheles arabiensis in Northern State, Sudan

Objectives: The surveillance strategy used for monitoring and evaluation was designed to provide the following data: A description of the spatial and temporal distribution of An. arabiensis. Knowledge of the seasonal density of the vector and its population size. Basic data for the release strategy. Data that allows calculation of the cost effectiveness of the project. Quantitative data for SIT project evaluation.

LULC classification and sectors

Sampling units

LULC classes

Final sampling map

Data collection

The effect of releases of sterile males on the density of the malaria vector An. Arabiensis in Northern Sudan

Diagram of study plan Intervention: Sector2 Control: Sector 1 Entomological and parasitological surveys for collection of baseline data (before intervention) Entomological and parasitological surveys for collection of baseline data (After intervention) No Release SM Release Two entomological surveys / month

Recapturing of mosquitoes using Back-back aspirator Resting site with different traps

Number of released sterile males, captured wild and sterile males and the ratio of captured sterile males to the wild males ReleasedCaptured WM Recaptured SM Ratio 15- May May June Aug Nov Jan Feb Feb

Mean of captured wild male / hectare at the control and intervention sites and number of released sterile males

Mean of captured female/hectare at the control and intervention sites and number of released sterile males

Comparison between the intervention sector and control sectors with the highest mosquito density in the island and western bank of the river

Challenges facing evaluation of the impact of release on mosquito density: Mosquito density is very low Swarms are rare but very useful in indicating the competence of SM and the presence of wild mosquito which can be compared between the release and control sectors Difficulty to measure the induced sterility among wild females because of their low density

Efforts proposed to maximize the catches: To survey all the present breeding sites To include swarms surveys in the control sectors To perform regular surveys even if there is no release

Project staff Tellal, Faize, Ammar, Tahani, Omnia, Amal, Zeinab, Mona, Sahar, Khidir, Hashim, Ahmed, M. Ibrahim, Mustafa, M. Korti, Hussein, Hakeem, Nadir, Mobarak, Abdel Moneim, Hafiz, Mowahib, Afaf, Sohaib, Zahra, Ali, Ishag and many others from NS.

Funding The project is getting financial support from the Islamic Development Bank, and financial and technical support from Sudan Ministry of Finance, and Technical support from the International Atomic Energy Agency

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