Abstract

Objective: To determine the sand fly composition, its frequency distribution and natural infection with Leishmania parasites to incriminate the likely vectors of cutaneous leishmaniosis in Jiroft, Southeast Iran. Methods: Sand flies were caught with sticky paper traps during a 6-month period in 2013. They were morphologically identified to species level using valid taxonomic keys. They were then subjected to nested PCR method and the results were analyzed. Results: A total of 3 751 sand flies were identified to belong to 21 species in two genera (8 spp. in the Phlebotomus genus, and 13 spp. in the Sergentomyia genus) most of which were males (65.60%) and exophilic (63.80%). The two most frequent species were Phlebotomus papatasi (39.40%) and Phlebotomus sergenti (17.20%). The latter was confirmed by PCR to be naturally infected with Leishmania tropica (3.33%). Conclusions: It was thus concluded that wild-caught Phlebotomus sergenti naturally infected with Leishmania tropica was mainly incriminated by molecular method to be the principal vector of cutaneous leishmaniosis in this endemic focus.

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