One of the most significant modern day efforts to prevent and control an arthropod-borne disease during a military deployment occurred when a team of U.S. military entomologists led efforts to characterize, prevent, and control leishmaniasis at Tallil Air Base (TAB), Iraq, during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Soon after arriving at TAB on 22 March 2003, military entomologists determined that 1) high...

A study of the phlebotomine sand fly fauna was carried out in an endemic area of American visceral leishmaniasis (AVL) in the municipality of Porteirinha, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. Captures were performed with CDC light traps in 7 districts, 5 days per month, during 2 consecutive years (January 2000 to December 2001). A total of 3240 sand flies were captured and identified. Sixtee...

Black rats (Rattus rattus) receiving Leishmania tropica injected intradermally into the ear were studied for the persistence of parasites and infectivity to natural sand fly vector. The mammalian host, the parasite, and the vector all originated from the endemic focus of Urfa, Turkey. Rats did not develop lesions or any apparent signs of disease, although at the site of inoculation they harbour...

The incidence of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) in Albania is higher than in other countries of southern Europe, however the role of local sand fly species in the transmission of Leishmania infantum was not addressed conclusively. In 2006, a country-wide collection of sand flies performed in 14 sites selected based on recent occurrence of VL cases showed that Phlebotomus neglectus was by far the m...

Sandfly fever group viruses in the genus Phlebovirus (family Bunyaviridae) are widely distributed across the globe and are a cause of disease in military troops and indigenous peoples. We assessed the laboratory sensitivity and specificity of the Sand Fly Fever Virus Antigen Assay, a rapid dipstick assay designed to detect sandfly fever Naples virus (SFNV) and Toscana virus (TOSV) against a pan...

Genotyping of sand fly species circulating in Peru was established on the basis of PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs) of the 18S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene. The sequences of 18S rRNA gene fragments from 12 Lutzomyia and 1 Warileya species were determined and their RFLP-patterns were analyzed. Consequently, RFLP analysis with the restriction enzyme AfaI and then HapII or KpnI, ...

Sand flies inject saliva into the mammalian host when probing for a blood meal. Understanding the initial vertebrate reactions against sand fly saliva is important for possible interventions because these insects transmit diseases to humans and other animals. Little is known of these reactions to New World sand flies. Repeated exposure of BALB/c mice to Lutzomyia longipalpis bites leads to loca...

Groundbreaking studies of phlebotomine sand fly populations in Assis Brasil, State of Acre, Brazil, resulted in the collection of 13 new records of phlebotomine sand flies and one previously undescribed species. Lutzomyia naiffi sp. nov. is described here. The new species is similar to Lutzomyia columbiana (Ristorcelli & Van Ty) in measurements and other morphological characters.

A descriptive study is presented of sand-fly fauna in Bolivar State, Venezuela. Identification was made of 2,364 sand-flies belonging to 18 species. The vectors of American cutaneous leishmaniasis in the different geographic regions of Bolivar State are possibly L. anduzei, L. wellcomei and L. squamiventris in the South, and L. flaviscutellata and L. gomezi in the North.