- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Sanford, lead author of "Plasmodium falciparum Infection Rates for Some Anopheles spp. from Guinea-Bissau, West Africa,” completed the research at UC Davis while she was funded by a National Institutes of Health T-32 training grant.
Sanford worked closely with medical entomologists Anthony Cornel of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology; and Gregory Lanzaro and Yoosook Lee of the Vector Genetics Laboratory, Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, School of Veterinary Medicine. Cornel is based at the Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center, Parlier, and also works in the Vector Genetics Lab.
"Malaria is among the leading causes of childhood mortality in Guinea-Bissau, comprising 18% of mortality of children less than five years of age as of 2010 (WHO, 2010). However, the human malaria incidence rate in Guinea Bissau varies considerably from year to year with a general decrease in recent years to about 3 children (Ursing et al., 2014). Plasmodium falciparum predominates, causing 98% cases, followed by a few cases of Plasmodium malariae and Plasmodium ovale. Mixed infections of P. malariae, and to a lesser extent P. ovale, have been recorded but appear to be rare and highly variable in both Guinea-Bissau (Snounou et al., 1993) and neighboring Senegal (Fontenille et al., 1997a; Fontenille et al., 1997b).
"Limited research has been conducted on the vectors and malaria parasite infection rates in Guinea-Bissau populations of Anopheles species in general and there is no data on comparative infection rates between A. gambiae and A. coluzzii and members of the A. gambiae complex. Variability is also high among the Anopheles spp. implicated as vectors in this region of West Africa in terms of both their temporal population dynamics as well as species composition among study sites (Carnevale et al., 2010; Fontenille et al., 1997a; Jaenson et al., 1994; Snounou et al., 1993).
"Here we present much needed data on P. falciparum infection of Anopheles spp. specimens collected from inside and around associated human habitations at eight sites in Guinea-Bissau."
Other co-authors, in addition to Cornel, Lanzaro and Lee are Catelyn Nieman, Allison Weakley and Sarah Han, all of the UC Davis Vector Genetics Lab; and Joao Dinis and Amabelia Rodrigues, National Institute of Public Health, Bissau, Guinea-Bissau.,
Sanford now works as a forensic entomologist at the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences, Texas Medical Center, Houston. While at UC Davis, she helped organize the World Malaria World Day observances.
Sanford received her bachelor of science degree in biology, with a minor in entomology, from UC Riverside in 2000; her master's degree in entomology from UC Riverside in 2003 and her doctorate in entomology from Texas A&M University in 2010. Her dissertation: “Observations on the Associative Learning Capabilities of Adult Culex quinquefasciatus Say and Other Mosquitoes.”
Active in the Entomological Society of America (ESA), Sanford won the John Henry Comstock Award, Southwestern Branch of ESA, in 2009. She received the 2010 Outstanding Achievement in Doctoral Research Award from Texas A&M in 2010, and a U.S. Fulbright Fellowship to Thailand in 2007.