Mapping the main Leishmania phlebotomine vector in the endemic focus of the Mt. Vesuvius in southern Italy

Abstract

Abstract. Geographical information systems and remote sensing were used to analyze the distribution of the Leishmania infantum-Phlebotomus perniciosus parasite-vector system in relation to environmental features of two opposite sides (coastal and Apennine) of Mt. Vesuvius, an area of intense transmission of human and canine leishmaniasis in southern Italy. Weekly phlebotomine collections were carried out during two consecutive warm seasons (2004)(2005) in 24 and 25 sites of the coastal and Apennine sides, respectively. Sandflies were caught using over one-thousand and seven hundred 20 x 20 cm-sticky traps placed in different environments. A total of 873 sandflies were collected, of which 284 (32.5%) were identified as P. perniciosus. The cumulative density (number of specimens/m 2 of sticky trap/two nights) of this vector species was 3.9. P. perniciosus was significantly more abundant in the coastal side (5.8) as compared to the Apennine side (1.4). The main environmental differences between the two sides were the aspect (south-west for the coastal and north-east for the Apennine side) and land use. The predominance of green vegetated environments (forest, semi-natural and agricultural areas) in the coastal side, in contrast with the predominance of artificial surfaces (namely urban environment) in the Apennine side, could be responsible for the different P. perniciosus densities between the two surveyed areas.

Understanding Phlebotomus perniciosus abundance in south-east Spain: assessing the role of environmental and anthropic factors

“…Murcia coastal SE is climatically variable, and this could be associated with a higher sand fly and leishmaniosis spatial overdispersion. Leishmaniosis foci associated to P. perniciosus have been reported in coastal areas in Italy [32]. Further entomological and epidemiological studies are needed to in Murcia’s SE zone, as well as in the C and W zones where information on Leishmania prevalence is presently incomplete.…”

“…P. perniciosus was the most abundant species in both trap types. Light traps are particularly suited for sand flies with strong phototropism such as P. perniciosus females [32]. In contrast, sticky traps sample sand flies by interception providing an unbiased estimate of insect activity in a place [15].…”

Temperature-derived potential for the establishment of phlebotomine sandflies and visceral leishmaniasis in Germany

“…Compared with other diseases and their vectors, only a few studies have investigated leishmaniasis and sandflies with an environmental-climatic focus via species distribution models (e.g. Peterson and Shaw, 2003;Nieto et al, 2006;Chamaille et al, 2010), geographical information system (GIS) and remote sensing techniques (Rossi et al, 2007). Aspoeck et al (2007) estimated the risk of autochthonous leishmaniasis in Austria, identifying temperature as the most important variable.…”

Geospatial Health: the first five years

“…The other NTDs, in descending order of importance, were leishmaniasis (6.9%) (Nieto et al, 2006;Carneiro et al, 2007;Rossi et al, 2007;Morosetti et al, 2009;Bhunia et al, 2010;Fischer et al, 2010;Salahi-Moghaddam et al, 2010;Bhunia et al, 2011), food-borne trematodiasis (3.7%) (Fuentes, 2006;Biggeri et al, 2007;Rinaldi et al, 2009;Suwannatrai et al, 2011), Chagas disease (3.0%) (Kitron et al, 2006;Bustamante et al, 2007;Lambert et al, 2008;Santana et al, 2011), soil-transmitted helminthiasis and other helminth infections (2.9%) (Biggeri et al, 2007;Raso et al, 2007;Knopp et al, 2008;Rinaldi et al, 2009;Standley et al, 2009; Yiannakoulias et al, 2010), echinococcosis (0.9%) , rabies (0.9%) (Mulatti et al, 2011), leprosy (0.9%) (Argaw et al, 2006), brucellosis (0.9%) (Porphyre et al, 2010), and filariasis (0.9%) (Mortarino et al, 2008).…”

“…3, three quarters of the original research articles and reviews published so far in Geospatial Health focussed on human health, whereas (2011) the remaining one quarter presented work related to veterinary health. We also identified six original research articles that pertained to both human and veterinary medicine (Stensgaard et al, 2006;Rossi et al, 2007;Wu et al, 2007;Infascelli et al, 2009;Sandes et al, 2009;Beugnet et al, 2011). Fig.…”