-13- 



meal from an uninfected gerbil. Lesions developed on the second 

 gerbi 1 15 days post infective feed. In 1927 Koshevnikova and 

 coworkers showed that the principal reservoir host of L tropica in 

 Central Asia is man and that the host of L major is the gerbil 

 ( Rhombomys opimus ) (Perfil'ev, 1968). Therefore, it seems safe to 

 assume that Kryukova's results represent the first experimental 

 transmission of L major by the bite of a sand fly, because the 

 original pathogen was obtained from gerbi Is caught in Turkmenia. 



New World Leishmaniasis 



In the New World, the task of vector incrimination has been 

 complicated by three factors: the extremely wide variety of sand fly 

 species (about 327 Lutzomyia compared to about 101 Phlebotomus in the 

 Old World), the failure to appreciate the multiplicity of leishmanial 

 parasites on the part of some workers, and the difficulty of working 

 in a dense tropical rain forest (Lainson, 1982). 



Leishmania donovani chagasi (American visceral leishmaniasis). 

 The peridomestic nature of American visceral leishmaniasis due to 

 L_. donovani chagasi facilitated the incrimination of Lu. 1 ongipa 1 pi s 

 (Lutz and Neiva) as the main vector of this disease. Its geographic 

 distribution coincides with visceral leishmaniasis throughout Latin 

 America. 



In 1936, Evandro Chagas found Lu. longipalpis in the house of the 

 first case of visceral leishmaniasis to be studied in South America, 

 in Sergipe, Brazil (Lainson, 1982). This prompted Chagas and others 



Mhe abbreviation J_u. for Lutzomyia is used to avoid confusion with L 

 for Leishmania. 



