Stuart J.G. Gordon, Charlotte Bolwell, Chris Rogers, Godfrey Musuka, Patrick Kelly, Karien Labuschagne, Alan J. Guthrie, Eric Denison, Philip S. Mellor, Christopher Hamblin
Abstract
A study of the distribution of Culicoides species was conducted by establishing 12 light trap sites over five rainy seasons between 1998 and 2003 covering all the geo-climatic natural regions of Zimbabwe. In total, 279 919 specimens of Culicoides were trapped over a total of 163 trapping nights. The highest median counts of Culicoides per trapping night were recorded in natural region III, which has climatic conditions conducive to the successful development of the larvae. Culicoides imicola, the major vector of bluetongue and African horse sickness viruses in Africa, was found to be the most abundant species (80.4%), followed by Culicoides enderleini (5.9%) and Culicoides milnei (5.2%). This study identified 10 species of Culicoides that had not been previously described in Zimbabwe, including Culicoides loxodontis and Culicoides miombo, which are members of the C. imicola complex. A total of 23 994 Culicoides midges were collected from five trap sites in Harare, Zimbabwe, with the dominant species, C. imicola, representing 91.6% of the total collection. Seventeen arboviruses were isolated from these midges, 15 of which were bluetongue virus. The predominant bluetongue virus serotype was serotype 11, followed by serotypes 1, 8, 12 and 15. Bluetongue virus serotypes 1, 2, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16 and 18, detected in this study, had not been previously reported in Zimbabwe.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 3. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 29 September 2022.
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#8,537,346
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#44
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Outputs of similar age from Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research
#2
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Altmetric has tracked 25,377,790 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 43rd percentile – i.e., 43% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 258 research outputs from this source. They receive a mean Attention Score of 5.0. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 56% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 17 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 88% of its contemporaries.
