Prevalence of sand flies and Leishmania donovani infection in a natural population of female Phlebotomus argentipes in Bihar State, India.

ABSTRACT: Leishmaniasis is a vector-borne disease, and in the Indian subcontinent the female Phlebotomus argentipes is the vector for Leishmania donovani. However, data on the extent of sand fly infection rates in natural settings using molecular methods have not been extensively reported in India. In this study a PCR technique was applied targeting the 18S rRNA encoding region to determine the prevalence of Leishmania infection in female P. argentipes captured in the field. For this study, sand flies were collected from 897 houses selected from 50 villages endemic for visceral leishmaniasis (VL) in Muzaffarpur district, Bihar state, using CDC miniature light traps and mouth aspirators. A total of 14,585 sand flies were collected of which 449 were female P. argentipes divided into 132 pools. Molecul

SUBMITTER: Tiwary P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3366094 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature