Most malaria infections in sub-Saharan Africa are acquired indoors, thus finding effective ways of preventing mosquito house entry should reduce transmission. Since most malaria mosquitoes fly less than 1 m from the ground, we tested whether raising buildings off the ground would prevent the entry of Anopheles gambiae, the principal African malaria vector, in rural Gambia. Nightly collections of mosquitoes were made using light traps from four inhabited experimental huts, each of which could be moved up or down. Mosquito house entry declined with increasing height, with a hut at 3 m reducing An. gambiae house entry by 84% when compared with huts on the ground. A propensity for malaria vectors to fly close to the ground and reduced levels of carbon dioxide, a major mosquito attractant, in elevated huts, may explain our findings. Raised buildings may help reduce malaria transmission in Africa.

撒哈拉以南非洲的大多数疟疾感染是在室内感染的，因此找到防止蚊子进入的有效方法应该可以减少传播。由于大多数疟蚊飞行距离地面不到 1 m，我们测试了将建筑物抬离地面是否会阻止冈比亚农村地区主要的非洲疟疾媒介冈比亚按蚊进入。使用来自四个有人居住的实验小屋的灯诱捕器每晚收集蚊子，每个小屋都可以向上或向下移动。随着高度的增加，蚊子屋的进入减少，3 m 处的小屋减少了 An。冈比亚与地面上的小屋相比，房屋进入率增加了 84%。疟疾病媒靠近地面飞行的倾向以及高架小屋中主要蚊虫引诱剂二氧化碳水平的降低可能解释了我们的发现。凸起的建筑物可能有助于减少非洲的疟疾传播。