Sandfly Fauna in an Endemic Focus for Cutaneous Leishmaniasis in Dezful District, Iran (2018-2019)

Leishmaniasis is one of the most important vector-born zoonosis diseases that transmits to human by sandfly species. Cutaneous leishmaniasis is one of the most important public health problems in majority areas of Iran. The current study was carried out to identify species of sand flies in Dezful District, Khuzestan Province, Iran.

Sandfly specimens were collected by using sticky traps from indoors and outdoors of different parts of Dezful City during the years 2018-2019. All sandflies were identified by valid identification keys based on external and internal morphological characters of the head and genitalia of both males and females.

2132 sandflies were collected. 8 species of sandflies from the Psychodidae family and the Phlebotomine subfamily were identified. Phlebotomus papatasi (46%) was the dominant species and Sergentomia squamiplaris (1%) was the non-dominant species in the area. Phlebotomus papatasi with 27.67% of mosquitoes caught as the dominant species indoors, and Sergentomia tibriadis was the dominant species in outdoors with 21.43% of mosquitoes caught. The peak activity of sandflies was in August, September, and October.

Due to the suitable climate, prevalence and species diversity of sanflies in Dezful is high. Phlebotomus papatasi sandfly is as the dominant vector species of cutaneous leishmaniasis in this region.