Even though Kala-azar is closer to elimination in the country, questions related to how the disease spreads still remain unanswered. Only recently, scientists in India and Bangladesh have understood the dynamics of how Post kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis or PKDL, the skin manifestation of the disease, spreads kala-azar. For the third podcast in the series on kala-azar, Suno India’s Menaka Rao speaks to Dr Rahul Chaubey, entomologist at Kala-azar Medical Research Centre, Muzaffarpur to understand the latest in vector research.

Reporting for this story was supported by the MSF-DNDi Grant on Neglected Tropical Diseases as part of the Without Borders Media Fellowship. The fellowship encourages independent, impartial and neutral reporting on health and humanitarian crises. 

References

Transmission Dynamics of Visceral Leishmaniasis in the Indian Subcontinent – A Systematic Literature Review - PMC
Livestock and rodents within an endemic focus of Visceral Leishmaniasis are not reservoir hosts for Leishmania donovani | PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
Establishing, Expanding, and Certifying a Closed Colony of Phlebotomus argentipes (Diptera: Psychodidae) for Xenodiagnostic Studies at the Kala Azar Medical Research Center, Muzaffarpur, Bihar, India - PMC
On a Herpetomonas Found in the Gut of the Sandfly, Phlebotomus Argentipes, Fed On Kala-Azar Patients - PMC
Ten years of kala-azar in west Bengal, Part I. Did post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis initiate the outbreak in 24-Parganas? - PMC
Bionomics of Phlebotomus argentipes in villages in Bihar, India with insights into efficacy of IRS-based control measures | PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases