The dynamics of cutaneous leishmaniasis in the presence of bird reservoirs as a tool for disease surveillance in Ecuador

Malaria is an infectious disease caused by protozoan parasites of the genus Plasmodium and transmitted by female Anopheles mosquitoes. Around 3.3 billion of people in all the world have the risk of contracting the disease. In 2015 Ecuador had 558 cases of malaria. About 465 Anopheles species are recognized in the world. Knowledge of the diversity of Anopheles species in each country is essential in order to understand the dynamics of the vector and the diseases. The ITS2 region is a ribosomal DNA molecular marker, it has conserved regions for the design of universal primers that allows the amplification of the region and simultaneously has variable sites, apt to differentiate closely related species. Conventional PCR technique was used for identification. 57 sequences were analysed for the development of the phylogenetic tree. An. trinkae was the most abundant specie with 31.6 percent of the total, followed by the cruzii complex with 29.8 percent, An. albimanus with 28.1 percent, An. rangeli 5.3 percent, An. pseudopunctipennis 3.5 percent and An. apicimacula with 1.7 percent. All the species identified except An. apicimacula have been reported as malaria vectors in other countries.