A study on the sand flies fauna of a high risk ZCL focus: Mehran county Ilam province, Iran

Leishmaniases are sand flies-borne diseases, caused by a protozoan parasite of the genus Leishmania are an important health problem in many regions of the world, especially in Iran. Zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis (ZCL) is a main form of the disease in which Leishmania major is circulated by Phlebotomus papatasi among the rodents’ populations and transmitted to humans, eventually. According to the Iranian Ministry of Health, 17 out of the 31 provinces of the country are affected by ZCL. Ilam province has been one of the most important foci of the disease from the time of Iran imposed war to now, located in west of the country, just in the neighborhood of the Iraq.Objective: To investigate sand flies fauna in the Mehran County and to went through the epidemiology of ZCL in the region.Materials and Methods: This study was conducted in the population peaks of the sand flies activities in two seasons of summer and autumn in 2018. Standard sticky traps were used for the collection of the adult sand flies. Totally, 300 sticky traps were installed in the human indoors/outdoors to capture sand flies. In total, about 3000 individual sand flies were captured from the studied areas. Only female sand flies were mounted on slides and were identified at genus and species levels using the Standard Iranian Diagnostic Keys.Results: From the mounted specimens, two genera of Sergentomyia and Phlebotomus were identified, with five species of genus Sergentomyia: S. squaminpleuris (0.10%), S. sintoni (17.63%), S. antennata (1.16%), S. tiberiadis (0.42%), S. iranica (7.39%), as well as four species of genus Phlebotomus: P. papatasi (54.27%), P. sergenti (0.31%), P. alexandri (0.10%), P. mesghali (0.10%).Conclusion: Phlebotomus papatsi was the most abundant sand fly species among the studied species. Designing appropriate control measures and developing suitable prognosis against infective bites of this sand fly should be the agenda of health authorities.

Keywords:

Phlebotomus papatsi , Sand flies fauna , Mehran , Iran.