In pursuit of effective control strategies against Leishmania chagasi and American Visceral Leishmaniasis, we investigated the ecology of Lutzomyia longipalpis in a series of laboratory and field experiments in Amazonian Brazil. In Chapter II, we show that bloodfeeding success in peridomestic animal pens was dependent on the density of females feeding at the host. As the density of biting flies...

Leishmaniases are neglected tropical diseases exhibiting complex transmission cycles due to the number of parasite species circulating, sand fly species acting as vectors and infected mammals, including humans, which are defined in the New World as accidental hosts. However, current transmission scenarios are changing, and the disease is no longer exclusively related to forested areas but urban...

BACKGROUND Chagas disease is a major parasitic disease in Latin America, prevented in part by vector control programs that reduce domestic populations of triatomines. However, the design of control strategies adapted to non-domiciliated vectors, such as Triatoma dimidiata, remains a challenge because it requires an accurate description of their spatio-temporal distributions, and a proper unders...

An ecological control method, using environmental management operations, based on biological and behavioral characteristics of Triatoma dimidiata (Latreille, 1811), was implemented as a pilot project in an area of Costa Rica where the bug is prevalent. The sample was represented by 20 houses with peridomestic colonies (two also had indoor infestation), divided in two equivalent groups of 10 eac...

The Reduviid bugs Triatoma garciabesi Carcavallo et al. (Hemiptera: Reduviidae: Triatominae), previously known as T. sordida Ståhl in the semi-arid chaco region, and T. guasayana Wygodzinsky & Abalos, vectors of Trypanosoma cruzi Chagas (Kinetoplastida: Trypanosomatidae), were found to occupy wide but different ranges of ecotopes in the peridomestic environment. At Amamá and nearby rural villag...

INTRODUCTION A descriptive, entomological and seroepidemiological study on Chagas disease was conducted in a place of recent occupation on the outskirts of Cochabamba, Bolivia: Avaroa/Primer de Mayo (population:3,000), where the socio-economic level is low and no control measures have been made available. METHODS The immunofluorescent antibody test (IFAT) was used for IgG and IgM anti-Trypano...

departments. Even then, we doubt that the quality of data gleaned would justify the cost incurred. We fail to see that the quality of information gathered by using the point-radius method would be an improvement over our suggestion. In our original article, we suggested using sets of standardized questions that are tailored to a given vector-borne disease. We also indicated that a critical mini...