Current status of Leishmania infection in female sandfly populations collected in 6 northern provinces of Vietnam, 2016

Abstract

This study aims to describe current status of Leishmania infection in female sandfly populations collected in 6 northern provinces of Vietnam, 2016. A sampling trip collected sandfly in Quang Ninh, Ninh Binh, Lang Son, Lao Cai, Ha Giang and Son La between May to October 2016, and 2585 sandflies were collected including 1049 females. We used nested PCR method to test 1009 female sandflies, 20 samples were suspected with Leishmania infection. Gene sequencing of these samples with NGS method, we obtained 10 Gb of data with a total of 121,651 sequence fragments ranging in length from 20 bp to 1728 bp (average 74 bp). Analysis of the obtained gene sequences we saw 10 sequences are Leishmania of 3 female samples. Two samples were identified as infected with Leishmania infantum and 1 sample was Leishmania sp. Leishmania infection rate in female sandflies population in our study was 0.297%. Therefore, all sandfly species and related ecosystems need to be studied further.