Over the last 20 years, there has been an increase in the number of leishmaniasis cases in Brazil. Belo Horizonte
(BH) is one of the most highly populated Brazilian cities that is affected by visceral leishmaniasis (VL). The health
services in BH are coordinated by a central nucleus that is subdivided into nine sanitary districts. Historically, the
highest level of human VL cases was found in the northeast sanitary district (NSD). The objective of our study was
to detect
Leishmania
infection in the phlebotomine sand flies collected in the NSD by dissection and molecular ap-
proaches. Following the occurrence of human VL cases in 2005, entomological captures were performed from July
2006-June 2007. Out of the 245 sand flies dissected, only three
Lutzomyia longipalpis
spp contained f lagellates. The
female sand flies were grouped into 120 pools according to date, collection site and species, with approximately
10 individual sand flies in each pool. Subsquently, the DNA was extracted and
Leishmania spp and other parasites
were detected and identified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and PCR-restriction fragment length polymorfism.
Leishmania infantum
was present in at least 19% of the
Lu. longipalpis collected, in 3.8% of the
Nyssomiya whitmani
collected, in 33.3% of the
Evandromiya termitophila
collected and in 14.3% of the
Nyssomiya intermedia
collected.
When the females of the
cortelezzii complex were compared with each other, 3.2% of the females were infected with
Leishmania braziliensis
, whereas 3.2% of the females were infected with trypanosomatids.
