Discovery of Phlebotomus Species of Sand Flies in Mwea Irrigation Scheme, Kirinyaga County, Kenya: A Possible Leishmaniases focus - Abstract
Background and objectives: During our study that was evaluating control of mosquito and sand fly vectors of Mwea Irrigation Scheme, Kirinyaga County, Kenya, we came across a number of phlebotomine sand flies. A faunistic study of some Kenyan phlebotomine sand flies (Diptera: Psychodidae) was carried out to find out the species which were likely to be present in Mwea Irrigation Scheme.
Methods: Morphological and molecular vector species identification was done using taxonomic keys and cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COI) gene amplification followed by Sanger sequencing and phylogenetic tree was constructed using the neighbor-joining method.
Results: A total of 251 sand flies were collected consisting of Phlebotomus martini Parrot 4.8% and P. rodhaini Parrot 0.8%. Majority of the sand flies collected were from Sergentomyia species (94.4%). High Resolution Melting (HRM) profiles of some male sand flies had same peak as that of P. martini controls and closely related in phylogenetic tree analysis.
Conclusion: The finding of these Phlebotomus species in Mwea is an indication that they can breed in non-arid/semi-arid urbanized areas and can be synanthropic unlike previously documented. PCR-High Resolution Melting profiles and phylogenetic analyses indicated that samples of sand flies were related
to P. martini sequences (accession number JX105040).