Med. J. MalaysiaVol. XXXIV No. 4 June, 1980 A PRELIMINARY SURVEY OF AEDES AEGYPTI IN SELANGOR, PENINSULAR MALAYSIA T. M. HO I. VYTHILINGAM Fig. 1. A map of Selangor showing the area surveyed. IAMPONO PANDAN SERI KEMBANOAN , i i / ; SCALE 1'1,000000 _._.'_. STilT<: BOUNDARY Individual houses are sited less than 20 metres apart and are supplied with piped water. Water pres- sure is low and most families have to resort to storing water. Seri Kembangan is another new village populated mainly by Chinese. There are about 2,000 houses. Certain houses are supplied with piped water but majority obtain their supply from wells and stand pipes. N @ Sungei Besar is a coastal town. The town consists of shophouses. There is piped water but water pres- sure is frequently low. Most shops store or collect water in large metal tanks of some 500 litres capacity. Tebuk Sultan and Tebuk Mufrat are 2 kampungs in the district of Sabak Bernam. There are over 200 houses in each kampung. Distance between houses varies from a few metres to 500 metres or more. Water is collected from natural sources and stored. DESCRIPTION OF AREA Kampung Pandan is new village of approximately 1,000 houses. The population is entirely Malays. INTRODUCTION The presence of Aedes aegypti in Malaya has been noted very early by Leicester (1908) and Stanton (l914).One of the earliest survey carried out on the species was by Reid (1954).Macdonald(1965a) submitted a paper dealing extensively with the distribution and dispersal of the species in Malaya. At that time, the interest in Ae. aegypti centered on it being a potential vector of yellow fever in Malaya but presently, its importance is as a vector of Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever (DHF). I. Vythilingam B. se., M. Se. (Hons.) Entomologist, Office of the Director of Medical and Health Services, Selangor, Malaysia. Fig. 1 shows the area selected for the survey. Ae. aegypti breeds in both artificial and natural water containers as reported by Macdonald (1956b) and' Cheong (1966). In Malaysia, the Ae. aegypti density is presently monitored by house searches using the single larva per container method devised by Sheppard et al (1969). T.M.Ho BSc. (Hons.), D.A.P. & E (Mal.) Entomologist, Epidemiology Unit, Ministry of Health, Malaysia. The aims of the present survey are firstly to pro- vide information on the distribution of the species as related to different housing types and secondly, to observe the preferred larval habitats. Finally, it is to determine the accuracy of the single larva method of survey. 4D9