Felician Meza

Focused medical entomologist with field experience in various location. Committed to implementing and control mosquitoes-borne diseases with a focus on new tools to protect individuals, households, and communities. This includes Attractive Toxic Sugar Bait (ATSB), odor baited traps, Camera traps, Long Lasting Insecticidal Nets (LLINs), and Indoor Residual Spray (IRS). Skilled in research and measuring the efficacy of vector control tools using appropriate experimental design and data analysis openly and collaboratively, and supporting others to build their capacity to be able to do the same.

• Co-Principal Investigator, Evaluate the efficacy of attractive targeted sugar bait and scalable camera trap stations against dengue and malaria vectors in Kilombero Valley, IVCC, USD 134,518
• Project leader, Pharmacokinetics of ivermectin in cattle and its effects on malaria vectors, environmental occurrence, fate of metabolites, dung degradation, and dung insect community dynamics in Kilombero Valley, Southeastern Tanzania, UNITAID, USD 164,108.01, 2022, 2023
• Principal Investigator (PI), Targeting strongly insecticide resistant Anopheles funestus by using attractive toxic sugar baits, Wellcome Trust, GBP 146,964, 10/2017, 12/2020
• Study coordinator, Coordinating different projects ranging from phase I to phase III in Vector Control and Products Testing Unit (VCPTU) at Ifakara Health Institute
• Project leader, Phase II Experimental hut and Phase III community study for evaluation of SumiShieldTM 50WG for Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) in Tanzania, SUMITOMO, 2016, 2017
• Research Officer and GLP site leader, Good Laboratory Practice, IVCC, USD 170,568, 2016, 2017
• Co-project leader, Targeting swarms and mosquito nocturnal behaviours to Control outdoor malaria transmission in Tanzania and Burkina Faso, IVCC, USD 300,000, 06/2016, 10/2016
• Research officer, Mosquito Electrocuting Trap as a tool for measuring mosquito host-choice and human biting rates in urban and rural area, European Union under AVECNET WP7, £515,651, 2014, 2015
• Research officer, Environmental and genetic basis of malaria transmitting behaviours in Anopheles arabiensis mosquitoes in Tanzania, NIH, £638,000, 2013, 2015

• Research Quality Assurance for Good Laboratory Practice
• GLP workshop
• Online course on protecting human research participants
• Mosquito identification (Mosquito taxonomy course)
• Statistics and boot camp writing
• Project Monitoring and Evaluation
• ICT skills: GPS, R statistical package, JMP statistical packages, STATA

• Alumni Association, University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM)
• Research Quality Association (UK)

• 1. Meza, F.C., Muyaga, L.L., Limwagu, A.J. and Lwetoijera, D.W., 2023. The ability of Anopheles funestus and A. arabiensis to penetrate LLINs and its effect on their mortality. Wellcome Open Research, 7. doi: 10.12688/wellcomeopenres.18242.3
  2. Meza FC, Roberts RM, Sobhy IS, Fredos O, Tripet F, Bruce TJA. Behavioural and Electrophysiological Responses of Female Anopheles gambiae Mosquitoes to Volatiles from a Mango Bait. Journal of Chemical Ecology (2020). DOI: 10.1007/s10886-020-01172-8
  3. Muyaga, L.L., Meza, F.C., Kahamba, N.F., Njalambaha, R.M., Msugupakulya, B.J., Kaindoa, E.W., Ngowo, H.S. and Okumu, F.O., 2023. Effects of vegetation densities on the performance of attractive targeted sugar baits (ATSBs) for malaria vector control: a semi-field study. Malaria Journal, 22(1), pp.1-13.
  4. Kreppel, K.S., Viana, M., Main, B.J., Johnson, P.C.D., Govella, N.J., Lee, Y., Maliti, D., Meza, F.C., Lanzaro, G.C. and Ferguson, H.M., 2020. Emergence of behavioural avoidance strategies of malaria vectors in areas of high LLIN coverage in Tanzania. Scientific reports, 10(1), pp.1-11.
  5. Meza, F.C., Kreppel, K.S., Maliti, D.F., Mlwale, A.T., Mirzai, N., Killeen, G.F., Ferguson, H.M. and Govella, N.J., 2019. Mosquito electrocuting traps for directly measuring biting rates and host-preferences of Anopheles arabiensis and Anopheles funestus outdoors. Malaria journal, 18(1), p.83. DOI: 10.1186/s12936-019-2726-x
  6. Batista, E.P., Ngowo, H., Opiyo, M., Shubis, G.K., Meza, F.C., Siria, D.J., Eiras, A.E. and Okumu, F.O., 2018. Field evaluation of the BG-Malaria trap for monitoring malaria vectors in rural Tanzanian villages. PloS one, 13(10), p.e0205358. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0205358
  7. Elis P. A. Batista, Halfan S. Ngowo, Mercy Opiyo, Gasper K. Shubis, Felician C. Meza, Fredros O. Okumu, Alvaro E. Eiras: Semi-field assessment of the BG-Malaria Trap for monitoring the African malaria vector, Anopheles arabiensis https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186696
  
  8.Felician C Meza, Frank Tenywa, Fredros O Okumu, Sarah J Moore, Frederic Tripet. Scalable camera traps for measuring attractive targeted sugar baits efficacy to malaria and dengue mosquitoes. Submitted to Parasites and Vectors
  

• Nicodem J Govella, PhD, Chief Research Scientist, Ifakara Health Institute, Tanzania, govella@ihi.or.tz, +255686997298
• Dickson W Lwetoijera, PhD, Medical Entomologist and Head of Training Unit, Ifakara Health Institute, Tanzania, dwilson@ihi.or.tz, +255786862818
• Emmanuel Kaindoa, PhD, Head of Environmental Health and Ecological Sciences Department, Ifakara Health Institute, Tanzania, ekaindoa@ihi.or.tz, +2557874303307

[Rsearch Quality Assurance, Research Quality Association (UK)] - 22nd- 24th November 2016

• Developed and tested Camera traps for day and night mosquitoes detecting for ATSB efficacy test tasks.
• Supervised Vector Control team, IRS staff and larviciding staff in Nduta Refugee Camp and Reduced malaria incidence from 500 to 50 cases.
• Documented and resolve the penetration rate of mosquitoes on ITNs which led to change of policy concerning with nets to be used in Tanzania.