Abstract:
Sand flies are small haematophagous insects that transmit Leishmania parasites. Infection with
Leishmania parasites results in diseases known as leishmaniases which can be grouped into three main forms:
cutaneous, mucocutaneous and visceral leishmaniases. The CDC light trap is the standard surveillance
technique used to determine sand fly densities in a given locality, although this technique has been hampered by
several logistic issues. Therefore, this study sought to use host blood, urine and ripe fruits as baits in a modified
trap to come up with a cheap device for sand fly surveillance. This study also aimed at identifying the sand fly
species attracted to this new device. Defibrinated blood from cattle, goat, sheep and chicken; urine from cattle,
sheep and goat and fruits: grapes, mangoes, bananas and apples were placed inside each trap to act as sand fly
attractants. A total of 1302 sand flies were collected within 3 trapping nights. Blood baited trap yielded more
sand flies (202.33 ± 2.85) while chicken baited trap trapped the least (65.00 ±1.53). Among the fruit baited
traps, bananas attracted the highest number of sand flies (94.33 ± 4.63) followed by mango baited trap which
caught (89.67 ± 2.33) although the difference between these two was not significant (P=0.682). 64.3% of the
collected sand flies belonged to the genus Sergentomyia and 35.7% to Phlebotomus. The collected sand flies
belonged to 7 species with P. martini (35.7%), S. schwetzi (34.1%) and S. antennata (15.7%) being the
dominant species. Volatiles from plant and animal hosts may be used instead of light or carbon dioxide to
improve the efficiency of traps for haematophagous insects. These volatiles can also be used to synergize each
other and be incorporated in traps targeting sand flies.
