Distribution of the Simulium damnosum complex on Bioko island, Equatorial Guinea, and the potential for onchocerciasis elimination by vector eradication

Onchocerciasis is endemic on the island of Bioko, Equatorial Guinea, where it is transmitted by the 'Bioko form' of the Simulium damnosum complex, a cytospecies unique to the island. To determine the distribution of vector breeding, three dry season and two wet season expeditions were made in 1989, 1996 and 1997, and 226 of the island's 247 rivers (91.5%) were visited. Of these 226 rivers, 130 (58%) were flowing during the dry season, forty-five (20%) supported aquatic stages of Simuliidae of any species and twenty-five (11%) contained larvae or pupae of the S. damnosum complex. The twenty-one rivers not prospected were in the mountainous south of the island, where an additional seventeen rivers were reached but not satisfactorily prospected. Of these thirty-eight rivers, twenty-nine were considered highly likely to support vector breeding, bringing the total number of rivers which could harbour the vector during the dry season to fifty-four (21.9% of the island's total). Breeding was believed to be limited to river stretches below 1000 m altitude, and during the dry season the total length of those stretches which could support breeding on Bioko was estimated to be 1020 km. A combination of factors, including low river discharges during the dry season, the relatively low water temperature on Bioko, the suitability of limited stretches of most rivers as vector breeding sites and the close proximity of many rivers within a small geographical area, render the vector vulnerable to eradication by aerial treatment of rivers with insecticide. The isolation of the Bioko form of the S. damnosum complex suggests that reinvasion following treatment would be unlikely, and eradication of the vector might be achieved by a dry season larviciding programme in one or two years.