Parasitological and molecular search for Leishmania natural infection in phlebotomine sand flies in peri-urban and rural sites of an Argentinean area endemic for tegumentary leishmaniasis.

Leishmaniases are neglected tropical diseases caused by Leishmania spp. parasites transmitted by the bite of phlebotomine sand flies. In Argentina, the most endemic area of American tegumentary leishmaniasis (ATL) has been Orán department, Province of Salta, where Leishmania (Viannia) braziliensis prevails and Nyssomyia neivai is considered as its vector, although there is no accurate and sufficient information in this regard.

Sand fly typing: a simple and morphologically-supported method based on polymorphism of 18S rRNA gene in a Leishmaniasis endemic area of Argentina.

Leishmaniases are vector-borne diseases that in the Americas are distributed from southern United States to northern Argentina. The vectors for this disease are small dipterans known as sand flies that are usually identified morphologically by observing structures with taxonomic value; but it is time-consuming, laborious, and requires entomological expertise. Then, this work was aimed at identifying sand flies with molecular techniques, using the morphological identification as a reference technique, in an endemic area of American Tegumentary Leishmaniasis (ATL) located in northern Argentina.

Molecular Identification of spp. DNA from Archived Giemsa-Stained Slides of Patients from Salta, Argentina.

Cutaneous leishmaniasis is endemic in Salta province, which belongs to the northwest of Argentina. spp. DNA from Giemsa-stained slides of up to 12 years in storage of patients from Salta was characterized through polymerase chain reaction (PCR) restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP).