Molecular Identification ofspp. Larvae insensu lato Collected in Northern Uganda.

Abstract

Previous studies have demonstrated that the presence of larvae of other filarial species insensu lato can distort estimates of transmission potential forin West Africa. However, studies conducted in foci of onchocerciasis in West Central Uganda indicated that larvae other thanwere not common in vectors collected there. Recent data collected in Northern Uganda revealed a striking discordance between estimates of the prevalence of flies carryinginfective larvae obtained from molecular pool screening and dissection methods. To resolve this discrepancy, sequences from three mitochondrially encoded genes were analyzed from the larvae collected by dissection. All larvae analyzed werev. Siisa, a parasite of cattle, or, a parasite of warthogs. These results suggest that nonhuman parasite larvae are common in vectors in Northern Uganda, underscoring the necessity for molecular identification methods to accurately estimatetransmission.