CHAPTER 1 

 SAND FLIES AND LEISHMANIASIS 



Introduction 



The common name "sand fly" has been used confusingly in the 

 literature for members of two families of Diptera, the 

 Ceratopogonidae and the Psychodidae. In this work "sand fly" 

 refers only to the members of Psychodidae belonging to the subfamily 

 Phlebotominae. 



Sand flies are important as vectors of several human pathogens 

 including phi eboviruses (e.g., sand fly fever), bartonel losis 

 (Carrion's disease) and, most notably, leishmaniasis, a complex of 

 diseases caused by various species and subspecies of unicellular 

 hemof lagel lates in the genus Leishmania Ross (Adler and Theodor, 

 1957). Leishmaniasis is widely distributed in most tropical and 

 subtropical countries, extending through Central and South America, 

 Central and Southeast Asia, India, China, the Mediterranean Basin, and 

 Africa (Lainson, 1982). Until recently the disease was believed to be 

 absent from North America north of Mexico, but the confirmation of 

 several autochthonous human cases in Texas since 1968 has dispelled 

 that belief (Simpson et al., 1968; Shaw et al., 1976; Gustafson et a!., 

 1984). In 1981 the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that 400 

 thousand new cases of leishmaniasis occur annually throughout the 

 world, but this may be an underestimation. Leishmaniasis is probably 

 second in importance only to malaria among the protozoan diseases in 



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