2018 HIGHLIGHTS OF MOSQUITO AND VECTOR BIOLOGY AND CONTROL IN LATIN AMERICA

The 28th Annual Latin American Symposium presented by the American Mosquito Control Association (AMCA) was held as part of the 84th Annual Meeting of the AMCA held in Kansas City, MO, in February 2018. The Latin American Symposium promotes the participation of vector control specialists, public health workers, and academic members from Latin America and the sharing of scientific data between continents. Generally, presentations are in Spanish with simultaneous translation into English. The majority of presentation slides are in English to facilitate communication among all meeting attendees. This publication includes summaries of 14 oral presentations by participants from Colombia, Mexico, and the United States of America. Topics addressed in the 3 sessions of the symposium included: larval habitats, insecticide resistance, new Aedes mosquito traps, blood meal analysis and fitness outcomes, vertical transmission of dengue, and transstadial composition of midgut microbiota. Control techniques discussed included sterile insect technique (SIT) with radiation, SIT by Wolbachia, thermal fogging, ultra-low volume pesticide applications, indoor residual spraying, Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis de Barjac (Bti), and Spinosad larval treatments. Presentations were also given on species composition and diversity of phlebotomine sand flies. Presentations were related to the vector species belonging to the mosquito genera, Anopheles, Aedes, and Culex as well as phlebotomine sand flies involved in the transmission of the causal agents of malaria, arboviruses (dengue, chikungunya, Zika), and leishmaniasis.