THE DISTANCE OF ATTRACTION OF A HUMAN BAIT TO LUTZOMYIA-VERRUCARUM (DIPTERA, PSYCHODIDAE) IN CROPS

Lutzomyia verrucarum (Townsend) is an abundant anthropophilic phleboto mine sandfly in the Peruvian Andes between 1500 m and 3000 m asl, wher e it has been incriminated as a vector of both Leishmania peruviana (c utaneous leishmaniasis) and Bartonella bacilliformis (bartonellosis). Previous studies of this vector demonstrated that sandfly activity, me asured by sticky traps, was related to crop type. In this paper, we re port the results of a field experiment in Peru (Department of Ancash) which show that a single human host in a crop does not attract Lid. ve rrucarum from distances of 5 m or more, and that there is a positive c orrelation between the number of Lu. verrucarum collected by sticky tr aps and the number attracted to a human host in the same field. The re sults imply that variation in sandfly activity between crop types coul d lead to differential risk of both leishmaniasis and bartonellosis fo r humans working at night in different crops.