Human exposure to Anopheles farauti bites in the Solomon Islands is not associated with IgG antibody response to the gSG6 salivary protein of Anopheles gambiae.

Few studies to date have concurrently measured anopheline biting rates and the prevalence of human antibodies to gSG6. The lack of association between anti-gSG6 antibody titres and concurrently measured human biting rates suggests that the assay for human anti-gSG6 antibodies lacks sufficient sensitivity to be a biomarker of An. farauti exposure at an epidemiologically relevant scale. These findings imply that an improvement in the sensitivity of serology to monitor changes in anopheline biting exposure may require the use of saliva antigens from local anophelines, and this may be especially true for species more distantly related to the African malaria vector An. gambiae.