The squash blot technique and the detection of Leishmania major in Phlebotomus papatasi in Tunisia.

This study describes the preliminary applications of the squash blot technique in Tunisia, to detect Leishmania major in naturally infected Phlebotomus papatasi. 309 P. papatasi among 364 female sandflies squashed on to nylon Gene Screen DNA transfer membranes, were identified using the 3.2 kb ribosomal P. papatasi specific DNA probe described by Ready et al. A second hybridization using the Taq1 DNA probe described by Smith et al. (1989) allowed the detection and identification of the parasite in 15 (4.9%) of these P. papatasi specimens. The dissection of P. papatasi females during the same period and from the same biotopes showed an infection rate of 7.9% (9 positives among 113 dissected). The t proportion comparison test indicated that there is no significant statistical difference between the dissection and the squash blot technique for the estimation of infection rates of P. papatasi.