Blood meals from sand flies (fwd)

[Richard Speare]

> Subject: Blood meals from sand flies
> 
>      Does anybody know of the existence of a kit to determine the blood 
>      meal of sand flies using ELISA?
>      
>      Thank you
>      
>      jorge at opas.org.br

Reply from Jeffrey Hii, Dept of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, 
James Cook University, Townsville.

Jeffrey.Hii at jcu.edu.au


Test RB et al (1988) has a paper on detecting albumin IgG, IgM and
complement C3 in human blood after digestion by Aedes albopictus and
Phlebotomus papatasi (sandfly) published in Am J Trop Med Hyg 39(1): 
127-130.  I don't think there is a commercial ELISA kit available, but
commercially prepared rabbit anti-human albumin, IgM, IgG and C3
complement can be purchased from KPL or Cooper Biomedical Inc. 

There is another paper describing an ELISA for identification of 
bloodmeal source in black flies (Simuliidae) which presumably shares a 
similar bloodmeal volume as the sandfly. This technique is published in 
Journal Medical Entomology vol 28(4): 527-532 (1991) by Fiona H Hunter & 
R Bayly.