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"They pushed me over at gunpoint. I spent two days without food or water in the middle of a field in knee-deep water teeming with mosquitoes and leeches," Ms Banu said, wiping away tears.

This summer, Gamston in Retford will be among a number of locations to undergo mosquito surveillance as part of a national project to understand mosquito activity across Britain.

Malaria parasites, which kill nearly 600,000 people a year, mostly children, are spread by female mosquitoes when they drink blood.

While the Aedes vexans mosquito is native to Britain, he added that warming temperatures may bring non-native species to the UK and, with them, the potential of infectious disease.

Some mosquito breeding was seen in the problem pools, and was treated, he said.