Dermatozoonosis by Culicoides' bite (Dipteria, Ceratopogonidae) in Salvador, State of Bahia, Brasil. 3. Epidemiological aspects.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to I A Sherlock.
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Preliminary data of a project about the ecology of the Phlebotominae (sandflies) in a tegumentary leishmaniasis area of coconut plantation in the south of the State of Bahia, Brazil are presented. There are 60 dwellings far of one another, where existed 31 dogs and 229 inhabitants. Among them 41.5% were Montenegro positive; 37.5% from these had scars of healed ulcers and 8.8% had active ulcers. 53% of the house had dogs from which 22% were seropositive; from the 7 dogs with ulcers only 3 were seropositive. 14% of the inspected house harboured sandflies inside them. During two years of observations 72 sentinels hamsters were maintened at houses of patients with leishmaniasis ulcers, but they did not get the infection. During two years of observation, monthly collectings of sandflies were made inside house, chicken pen, curral, tree trunks and open field around a house with a patient with leishmaniasis. The following results were already obtained about the vectors: 5,614 specimens were identified as belonging to fourteen different species of sandflies. Among them Lutzomyia whitmani (92%) and Lutzomyia intermedia (4.8%) were the most abundant species. They are very anthropophilic and can be found inside houses and at peridomestic sites. Probably they are the principal vectors of the disease at domestic places. The other twelve species were less frequent and more found at sylvatic places in inspite they also bite the man. Generally the biting activity of most of the species of the area begins at 5 p.m. in the dusk and reaches its peak at 0 hour a.m., when begins declining until disapear at 7 a.m. L. whitmani was similarly collected with the same density in all lunar phases while L. intermedia was more abundant during the new moon phase. Most of the hundreds sandflies collected during the second year of observations, remains preserved in liquid nitrogen, watching for the adjustment of PCR molecular techniques to be processed for determination of the vector natural infection rates with leishmanias. Final results on all the project will be published as soon as the examination of such material has been processed.
From July to September of 1998, 152 fleas were collected from 18 specimens of the fox Cerdocyon thous captured in the visceral leishmaniasis endemic area of Jacobina, State of Bahia, Brazil. The fleas were identified as: 136 Rhopalopsyllus lutzi lutzi, 11 Pulex irritans, 2 Ctenocephalides canis, 1 Ctenocephalides felis felis and 2 Xenopsylla cheopis.
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An opossum, Didelphis albiventris, from Jacobina, Bahia State, was found naturally infected with Leishmania donovani, being the first non-canid wild mammal to be detected with the agent of kala-azar in the New World.
Ectoparasites collected from wild mammals of Ilha Grande, state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, are listed. The most frequent species of mammal was Proechimys dimidiatus (Gunther, 1877); Gigantolaelaps oudemansi Fonseca, 1939 and Polygenis lakoi Guimarães, 1948 were the predominant species of acari and fleas, respectively.
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The laboratory and field observations summarized in this paper on visceral leishmaniasis ecology in the State of Bahia, Brazil are based on the author's observations over the past 35 years in a number of state's foci, public health records and literature citations. The disease is endemic with epidemic outbreaks occurring every ten years and its geographical distribution is expanding rapidly in the last years. Leishmania chagasi is the main ethiologic agent of the visceral leishmaniasis but Le. amazonensis s. lato was the only leishmania isolated by other authors from some visceral leishmaniasis human cases in the state. Lutzomyia longipalpis (with one or two spots on tergites III and IV and two sized different populations) was epidemiologically incriminated as the main vector. It was found naturally infected with promastigotes, and it was infected with four species of leishmanias in the laboratory. Although the experimental transmission of Le. amazonensis by the bite of Lu. longipalpis to hamsters was performed, the author was not successful in transmitting Le. chagasi in the same way. The dog is the most important domestic source for infection of the vector, however it is not a primary reservoir. The opossum Didelphis albiventris was found naturally infected with Le. chagasi but its role as reservoir is unknown. Foxes and rodents were not found infected with leishmanias in Bahia.
During the last twenty years, several adults of Triatoma tibiamaculata infected with Trypanosoma cruzi have been spontaneously caught by inhabitants, inside their houses in the new habitational district of Pitua¿u of Salvador, Bahia. In this communication the authors call attention to the necessity of studies about the possibility of occurrence of new human cases of Chagas disease, to clarify the obscure origin of some positive blood donors in Salvador.
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