Background Burkina Faso has a high burden of malaria in pregnancy despite mass deployment of insecticide-treated nets (ITN) and use of intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy (IPTp). Understanding how pregnant women contribute to the infectious reservoir will enable development of tools to effectively address malaria transmission.

Methods A community-based longitudinal cohort with mosquito infection assays was carried out in pregnant women in Saponé Health District, central Burkina Faso. Pregnant women who were parasite positive were followed monthly after their antenatal care visits (ANC). Venous blood samples were collected for direct membrane feeding assays (DMFA) prior Sulfadoxine-Pyrimethamine (SP) dosing and on day 7 or 14 post DMFA to assess infectiousness to mosquito.

Results A total of 63 pregnant women were enrolled in the survey. 153 mosquitoes feeding experiments were conducted and 7,736 mosquitoes were dissected. 3.9% of feeds were infectious to mosquitoes with 18,3% of mosquito infection rate and 3.6% oocyst prevalence per infected midgut.

Conclusion Key findings related to parasite and gametocyte density, duration of infection and mosquito exposure will be presented during the conference to address the hypothesis that pregnant women under IPTp may still constitute a significant source of mosquito infection.