| خلاصه مقاله | Background
Phlebotomine sand flies are blood-feeding insects transmitting various
Leishmania species (Family: Trypanosomatidae)
to humans and animals. The blood preference of sand flies is crucial to identify potential reservoir hosts of Leishmania
parasites.This study aimed to determine feeding behaviors of
Phlebotomus sergenti Parrot, in a new focus of
Anthroponotic Cutaneous Leishmaniasis in Bam County, southeast Iran.
Material and methods
Reference
Results
Conclusion
Two methods were used to determine the feeding behavior of
Ph. sergenti. In the first method, blood-fed sand flies were
captured using a mouth aspirator in human and animal dwellings and consequently, blood meal identification was made
using Multiplex PCR. The results were used for calculating Host Feeding Index (HFI) and Forage Ratio (FR)
parameters. In the second method, human (
Homo sapiens), goat (
Capra aegagrus), cattle (
Bos taurus), chicken (
Gallus
gallus) and dog (
Canis lupus) were used as baits in tent-baited traps to determine the feeding behavior of
Ph. sergenti.
Multiplex PCR analysis revealed that the most frequent blood in the stomach of sand flies’ were from chicken, but the
calculation of the FR revealed that this species prefers canine and poultary blood as meal. Human and animal tent-
baited traps revealed that most
Ph. sergenti were attracted to chicken rather than the other hosts.
Sand flies are attracted to animals for various reasons such as eating blood, mating on their bodies and laying eggs on
their feces. Molecular methods are effective and accurate methods to determine the type of host that sand fly fed on,
but they do not show host preferences. The results of the molecular analysis, along with the calculation of HFI and FR, can determine the preferred host of sand flies. The current study revealed that dogs, the secondary reservoir of ACL in Iran, is the first preferred host of Phlebotomus sergent |