Japhet Kihonda
Senior entomology technician
Japhet Kihonda is a senior entomology technician with over 30-year experience. He joined the Ifakara Health Institute (IHI) in 1988 where he started off his career as a field technician in a malaria project where he was employed as a Field Interviewer and since then, he has been working in the Department of Environmental Health and Ecological Sciences. He attended a number of initial entomology training in the 1990s. Afterwards, in 1998, he went to Kenya for a specialized training on mosquito dissection at Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) and the United Kingdom (UK) for another specialized training on mosquito blood meal analysis techniques (ELISA) at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. In 2000, he attended a specialized training on mosquito identification technique using PCR in Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. Japhet is currently involved in the HumBug project where he is in-charge of the field activities involving mosquito collection and identification.
