Current Knowledge of Leishmania Vectors in Mexico: How Geographic Distributions of Species Relate to Transmission Areas

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Issue Date
2011Author
González, Camila
Rebollar-Téllez, Eduardo A.
Ibáñez-Bernal, Sergio
Becker-Fauser, Ingeborg
Martínez-Meyer, Enrique
Peterson, A. Townsend
Sánchez-Cordero, Víctor
Publisher
American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
Type
Article
Article Version
Scholarly/refereed, publisher version
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Leishmaniases are a group of vector-borne diseases with different clinical manifestations caused by parasites transmitted by sand fly vectors. In Mexico, the sand fly Lutzomyia olmeca olmeca is the only vector proven to transmit the parasite Leishmania mexicana to humans, which causes leishmaniasis. Other vector species with potential medical importance have been obtained, but their geographic distributions and relation to transmission areas have never been assessed. We modeled the ecological niches of nine sand fly species and projected niches to estimate potential distributions by using known occurrences, environmental coverages, and the algorithms GARP and Maxent. All vector species were distributed in areas with known recurrent transmission, except for Lu. diabolica, which appeared to be related only to areas of occasional transmission in northern Mexico. The distribution of Lu. o. olmeca does not overlap with all reported cutaneous leishmaniasis cases, suggesting that Lu. cruciata and Lu. shannoni are likely also involved as primary vectors in those areas. Our study provides useful information of potential risk areas of leishmaniasis transmission in Mexico.
Description
This is the publisher's version, also available electronically at http://www.ajtmh.org/content/85/5/839
ISSN
0002-9637Collections
Citation
González, Camila; Rebollar-Téllez, Eduardo A.; Ibáñez-Bernal, Sergio; Becker-Fauser, Ingebog; Martinez-Meyer, Enrique; Peterson, A. Townsend; and Sánchez-Cordero, Víctor 2011. Current knowledge on Leishmania vectors in Mexico: How species' geographic distributions relate to transmission areas. American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 85:839-846. http://dx.doi.org/10.4269/ajtmh.2011.10-0452
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