background: zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis (zcl) due to leishmania major is increasing in many parts of iran. this disease originally is a disease found in gerbils. leishmania parasites are transmitted by sandflies that live and breed in gerbil burrows. nested pcr amplified leishmania its1-5.8s rrna gene in both main reservoir host “rhombomys opimus” and in the “phlebotomus papatasi” main vec...

Following an epidemiological survey of zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis (ZCL) in several villages of Badrood, a rural district north of the city of Natanz, central Iran, Phlebotomus (Phlebotomus) papatasi Scopoli were found to be naturally infected with Leishmania (Leishmania) major zymodeme MON-26. Sand flies were collected and dissected biweekly from rodent burrows from May to October 2001. L...

Sand fly fever (SF) is an arthropod-borne viral disease, also known as "Phlebotomus fever", "mosquito fever", three-day fever or "Papatacci fever". It is transmitted by Phlebotomus papatasi, starts with acute onset of high fever, and lasts for three days. We present first cases in a different district of Turkey with the clinical findings of fever, myalgia-arthralgia, headache, gastrointestinal ...

Elucidating the evolution of Phlebotominae is important not only to revise their taxonomy, but also to help understand the origin of the genus Leishmania and its relationship with humans. Our study is a phenetic portrayal of this history based on the genetic relationships among some New Word and Old Word taxa. We used both multilocus enzyme electrophoresis and morphometry on 24 male specimens o...

leishmaniasis has long been known as a significant public health challenge in many parts of iran. phlebotomus pa­patasi and p. sergent i are the vectors of zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis and anthroponotic cutaneous leish­maniasis respectively, and 5 species of sand flies including p. kandelakii , p. neglectus , p. perfiliewi , p. keshishiani and p. alexandri are considered as probable vectors...

Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is prevalent in the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula and previous research has consistently documented the etiologic agent to be Leishmania major. We report the first isolation of Leishmania tropica from human cases of CL in a Northern Sinai community bordering Palestine. Parasite culturing, real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR), gene sequencing, and restriction fragmen...

Sir, Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is a protozoan disease present in Old and New Worlds (1, 2). It is endemic in the Mediterranian basin, particularly in the rural areas of Sicily where almost 60% of Italian cases occur. The disease is caused by parasites of the genus Leishmania infantum, carried by specific species of sandflies as Phlebotomus perniciosus and Phlebotomus perfiliewi perfiliewi (3...