Survey of Rodents Fauna Regarding to their Probabilistic Contamination to Leishmania (2013-2014)

Tangistan county now is considered as one of the foci of zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis in Bushehr province. Rodents are the main parasites reservoir of this disease (leishmania major) and so far four of them have been identified as the main reservoirs of the disease in the country.The aim of thissurvey was to identification of rodents species and determine the extent of contamination to Leishmania in Tangistan county.
This study was a cross-sectional and descriptive. Rodents were collected by using live traps in different parts of the county. The captured rodents were identified regarding to morphological characteristics and valid detection keys.The captured rodents were anesthetized with chloroform and 2 smears were prepared by sanding method from the each ear and after drying smears fixed by the Methanol. smears was stained by the standard Giemsa method and examined under the light microscope.
From the total of 187 collected rodents, 9 species were identified. Tatera indica with 70.6% was the dominant species.In this study,there were no rodents contaminated with Leishmania.All captured rodents were contaminated with lice and fleas. Most ectoparasites were fleas with two detected species, xenopsylla cheopis and xenopsylla astia.
Regarding to the high frequency of Tatera indica in this county,and also this fact that this species was reported as the main reservoir of cutaneous leishmaniasis in southwestern of Iran in past studies, it can play an important role for zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis )ZCL) in the future.