Fig. 4

Infectivity of natural gametocytes following thermos flask storage. Gametocyte infected blood was collected from individuals in Burkina Faso (black circles, n = 47) and The Gambia (red circles, n = 16), and paired DMFAs were performed either immediately (Immediate) or following storage of the blood for 3 – 4 h in a thermos flask filled with water at 35.5 °C to 36 °C (Thermos). Mosquito infection rate was evaluated as a average oocysts per mosquito, or b prevalence of infection (% of infected mosquitoes). Lines indicate the group medians and groups compared by Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed rank test. c Spearmans correlation of % mosquitoes infected before and after gametocyte storage and d Bland–Altman analysis comparing the % mosquitoes infected using the two methods