Some papers (eg Saudi Epidemiology Bulletin 1995; WHO report 1995) report the presence of Aedes albopictus in Saudi Arabia, but there could be a mixing up with Aedes unilineatus. Can anybody confirm the presence of Aedes albopictus in Saudi Arabia and in Yemen? Alternatively, can anybody send some specimens that look like Aedes albopictus for morphological or molecular identification?
Hi Francis,
for Saudi Arabia, have you contacted the authors of this recent paper?
Alikhan M, Ghamdi KA, Mahyoub JA. 2014. Aedes mosquito species in western Saudi Arabia. Journal of Insect Science 14(69).Available online: http://www.insectscience.org/14.69
Best,
No I couldn’t find a single specimen of Aedes albopictus during my 12 years survey in the western region of Saudi Arabi. I found only 4 specie.
Yes, I have few specimens of A. albopictus , I collected them from central part of Saudi Arabia
Dear Dr Abdullah I would appreciate if you kindly send me the photographs of Aedes albopictus collected by you with its exact location in central Saudi Arabia.
Indeed, could you take good photos from thorax (adult or larvae)?
Dear Francis,
In an interesting paper published by Kamal et al. (2018), Ae. albopictus have shown distributional patterns in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Hope to be useful.
Article Mapping the global potential distributions of two arboviral ...
Thank you Hasan
I know this paper with is a modelling exercise, based on a worldwide data set I contributed to (Kraemer et al). This data set has no presence data for Aedes albopictus in Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
So far, nobody could confirm its presence in these two countries.
@Abdullah: could you take some photos from your specimens in order to allow expert confirmation?
Dear Dr. Francis,
Sometimes ago I wanted to answer this ques., but I thought it was out of date to answer and no longer needed. Now I noticed some colleagues are still commenting, so I must give my opinion. Regarding the existance of Ae. albopictus in Saudi Arabia, I strongly beleive that it is not prevalent in this country. I worked there for more than 20 years (1999 - 2019) surveying and identifying mosquito species in various parts of the country. I have never ever come across a single specimen of this species. During this time, I identified more than 50 000 mosquito specimens (adults & larvae) as Ae. aegypti beside other species searching for albopictus without success. Those, who claim that they found specimens of albopictus, need to confirm their finding and further surveys need to be conducted to prove their presence.
Thank you....
Dear Dr Abdel-Mohsin
Thank you so much for your answer. It seems indeed that the species might be absent from Saudi Arabia, since nobody is able to confirm its presence by sending photos or specimens.
Kind regards
Francis
I think there are some samples that are in processing for confirmation as ECDC reported. Check ECDC site.
I totally agree with Dr Abdoon, I have had the chance to develop mosquito larval key for Saudi Arabia in 2011, and we have had collected specimens in a longitudinal study from everywhere during 2004-2008, we have received samples from ministry of health, municipality departments, and Ag department. We have not collected a single specimen. According to literature, Ae albopictus collected from Jeddah, was misidentified.
Hope it's helpful!
To Mohamed: yes very helpful, thanks.
To Abdallah: you certainly refer to the statement "" Saudi Arabia (to be confirmed), Yemen (to be confirmed)" at https://ecdc.europa.eu/en/disease-vectors/facts/mosquito-factsheets/aedes-albopictus ; since I'm in charge of updating these fact sheets, I try to get these presence/absence confirmations.
Hi Francis, yes, it is the statement I refer. Northern and Western borders of Saudi Arabia should be considered for better sampling. There is a possibility for invasion, so, I think a routine surveillance should be a good idea.
My lab is doing an extensive daily survey of mosquito species prevalant in and around Jeddah since 2006. During this period I could not find a single specimen of Aedes albopictus. Refer to my paper of 2014 “ Aedes species in jeddah”.
Please check on potential source of this troublesome vector mosquito species. It is now established in many seaports in the New World. Did your country import used tires from Asia? Did they came wet, as on an open ship from Japan? That is a good reason to inspect mosquito sources from port cities with a used tire business. You can do this work with a telephone book! Or Cel Phone!
Hi dear... See this article. Article Mapping the global potential distributions of two arboviral ...
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