[Malaria in the urban highland area of Antananarivo, Madagascar: bioecology of Anopheles arabiensis]

An entomological study was performed to document the transmission of Plasmodium, agents of human malaria in Antananarivo, capital of Madagascar. Human landing mosquitoes were collected at night during two years, between May 2003 and September 2005, in the two sites of Ambohimiandra-Manakambahiny and Ambolokandrina. The genuses of collected mosquitoes were, in order of abundance, Culex, Mansonia and Anopheles. The only potential vector was Anopheles arabiensis. Its maximal abundance was observed in January (22 and 15 bites per man per night, outdoors, respectively in the two sites), during the rainier month of the austral summer This anopheles was biting indoors, in bedrooms, but its agressivity was always higher outdoors than indoors. Its maximal agressivity was observed indoors between 00 and 01 am. The absence of An. gambiae and An. funestus in the catches on the one hand, and the absence of An. arabiensis infected by Plasmodium falciparum on the other hand, are discussed.