Years later, as part of UBS Optimus Foundation-funded research into household-level insect-control methods, my team found that a novel technology – durable wall linings soaked with the insecticide deltamethrin – was effective at killing sandflies for up to a year after application.

But in isolated rural communities, the solutions that we are researching may be more robust, convenient, and effective against not just sandflies, but also other kinds of disease-carrying insects, such as Zika-infected mosquitos.

In order to find out whether PKDL patients can act as a reservoir for VL – and therefore boost our capacity to eradicate the disease – my team and I have set up an insectarium to breed sterile sandflies.

We are also using the insectarium to test insecticide resistance and susceptibility in captive sandflies – research that will support the optimization of sandfly-control strategies throughout the Indian subcontinent.

Other diseases, such as sleeping sickness, transmitted by tsetse flies are fatal if untreated, as is leishmaniasis, if the parasites that cause it – transmitted by tiny sandflies – invade the liver and spleen.

Sandflies in sentence

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