No abstract

An eastern woodrat (Neotoma floridana) collected in January 2001 near Bedias, Grimes County, Texas, had extensive lesions of both ears and swollen feet. Impression smears and histologic sections demonstrated the presence of Leishmania in both ears and the one foot that was screened. Polymerase chain reaction screening using speciesspecific primers detected parasites in both ears and all four feet and indicated the parasites were L. mexicana. The detection of L. mexicana in N. floridana represents a new host record in a new ecologic region and may help explain a human infection acquired outside the previously-known range of the disease. Given the geographic distribution of N. floridana and the two other species of Neotoma found naturally infected, enzootic foci of Leishmania could be present over much of the southern United States.

No abstract

Sand flies within the genus Lutzomyia serve as the vectors for all species of the protozoan parasite Leishmania in the New World. In this paper, we present a summary of the 29 species of Lutzomyia and one of Brumptomyia previously reported for Nicaragua and report results of our recent collections of 565 sand flies at eight localities in the country from 2001-2006. Lutzomyia longipalpis was the predominant species collected within the Pacific plains region of western Nicaragua, while Lutzomyia cruciata or Lutzomyia barrettoi majuscula were the species most frequently collected in the central highlands and Atlantic plains regions. The collection of Lutzomyia durani (Vargas & Nájera) at San Jacinto in July 2001 is a new record for Nicaragua. Leishmaniasis is endemic to Nicaragua and occurs in three forms: cutaneous, mucocutaneous and visceral leishmaniasis. Cutaneous infections are the most prevalent type of leishmaniasis in Nicaragua and they occur in two different clinical manifestations, typical cutaneous leishmaniasis and atypical cutaneous leishmaniasis, depending on the species of the infecting Leishmania parasite. The distribution of sand flies collected during this study in relation to the geographic distribution of clinical forms of leishmaniasis in the country is also discussed.