Journal of Medical Entomology (2020) 57, 529-533

Yury Yzabella Da Silva, Kamila Gaudêncio Da Silva Sales, Débora Elienai De Oliveira Miranda, Luciana Aguiar Figueredo, Sinval P. Brandão-Filho and Filipe Dantas-Torres (2020)
Detection of Leishmania DNA in sand flies (Diptera: Psychodidae) from a cutaneous leishmaniasis outbreak area in northeastern Brazil
Journal of Medical Entomology 57 (2), 529-533
Abstract: Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) by Leishmania braziliensis Vianna (Kinetoplastida: Trypanosomatidae) is a widespread disease in the western hemisphere and Brazil is the country reporting the majority of the human cases each year. Several phlebotomine sand flies have been regarded as putative or proven vectors of L. braziliensis and multiple vectors may be involved in the transmission of this parasite in the same endemic foci. In this study, we tested a subset of female phlebotomine sand flies collected in the frame of a previous study conducted in a military training camp, where outbreaks of CL by L. braziliensis have sporadically been reported. In total, 1,807 female phlebotomine sand flies were tested (individually or in pools) by real-time PCR and a minimum infection rate of 0.9% (95% CI: 0.6–1.5%) was detected. Positive females belonged to the species Psychodopygus complexus (Mangabeira) or Psychodopygus wellcomei Fraiha, Shaw and Lainson (females of these species are morphologically indistinguishable), Trichopygomyia longispina (Mangabeira), and Sciopemyia sordellii (Shannon and Del Ponte) (Diptera: Psychodidae). By restriction enzyme analysis, 13 samples (nine of Ty. longispina, two of Ps. complexus/wellcomei, and two of Sc. sordellii) presented a HaeIII restriction profile identical to L. braziliensis. The results of this study reinforce the notion that multiple vectors may be involved in the transmission of L. braziliensis in a single focus, ultimately making the epidemiological picture more complex than currently recognized.
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Link to article at publishers website
Database assignments for author(s): Sinval P. Brandão-Filho, Filipe Dantas-Torres

Research topic(s) for pests/diseases/weeds:
general biology - morphology - evolution
surveys/sampling/distribution

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Pest and/or beneficial records:

Beneficial	Pest/Disease/Weed	Crop/Product	Country	Quarant.
	Lutzomyia complexa		Brazil (NE)
	Lutzomyia longispina		Brazil (NE)
	Lutzomyia sordellii		Brazil (NE)
	Lutzomyia wellcomei		Brazil (NE)