Establishment of Hymenolepis diminuta life cycle to provide parasite mass production

The main object of this experimental work was to practise laboratory production both adult and the larval stage of Hymenolepis diminuta with conventional modification to make further studies easier. Adults H. diminuta were collected from urban rats in Tehran, Iran. The beetles became infected using blended gravid segments with flour as bait. Cysticercoids have been saved after precise dissection of invertebrate hosts. The exposure of infected beetles to laboratory rats was performed to establish the life cycle. Out of 57 collected rats, three rats were infected with H. diminuta. Almost all exposed beetles found infected with the larval stage of parasite. About one-month later H. diminuta eggs were seen in stool examination of laboratory rats. Rare human occurrence of H. diminuta along with light level of clinical manifestation of this parasite, underestimate the concerns toward its public health importance. Nowadays, various field of studies, such as biochemistry with special focuses on the capability of H. diminuta tegument absorption have performed apart from parasitological views alone. In the present study, establishment of this parasite life cycle has practically provided the access of adult and cysticercoid stages of the tapeworm in further researches

Comparison of Permethrin and Fipronil toxicity against German cockroach [Dictyoptera: Blattellidae] strains

Control of insect pests of agriculture, economic, and medical importance usually focuses on the use of insecticides. The susceptibility levels of eleven strains of German cockroaches, Blattella germanica [L.], were compared with a standard susceptible strain against permethrin and fipronil. The strains were collected from nine infested students' dormitories and two infested hospitals in Tehran, capital of Iran. The susceptible strain showed LD50 of 0.43 micro g and 0.96 ng for permethrin and fipronil respectively. Comparison of the resistance ratio of collected strain with susceptible strain showed resistance ratios of 8.6 to 17.7-folds for permethrin and 1.5 to 2.6-folds for fipronil, respectively. The result of this investigation indicated that the all strains were resistant to permethrin. Resistance spectrum of fipronil to permethrin showed different pattern of susceptibility to fipronil, indicating that there was no relationship between resistance to permethrin and fipronil

protection of permethrin-treated military uniforms against natural population of Culex bitaeniohynchus, Culex ritaeniorhynchus and Culex perexiguus [Diptera: Culicidae]

Personnel of military forces have close contact with the environment and can be bitten by insects and exposed to the related diseases, more than other people. The importance of Culex mosquitoes for mankind is in fact, its biting and nuisance, especially at sleeping time. In recent years, great progresses have occurred in protecting people, especially military personnel, against arthropod bites and vector-borne disease, using treated clothes with permethrin. In this study, the protection of permethrin-treated military uniforms against 3 species of Culex in a rural field of Iran has been examined. In this study, six types of current military uniforms of Iran were treated by permethrin [0.125mg permethrin [Al]/cm[2] and examined against the biting of natural population mosquitoes of rural areas of Kazeroon, Fars Province, south of Iran, namely Culex. Eight volunteers were selected for this study. Six of them put on the treated uniforms and the other two wore the untreated uniforms. All the subjects participated in the night biting test for eight active nights of July 2004. There was no significant difference in the protection of different treated uniforms against mosquitoes biting. The relative protection level of treated uniforms, in comparison with untreated ones, was about 88/2%. The protection percentage of treated uniforms for different species of mosquitoes, in comparison with untreated ones, was calculated through determining the species of captured mosquitoes, separately from case and control subjects. The results showed that the relative protection percent of treated uniforms against species of Culex bitaeniohynchus, Cx. tritaeniorhynchus and Cx.perexiguus were 72.7, 87 and 89.8, respectively. The results of chemical analysis with High performance Thin Layer Chromatography [HPTLC] method, before and after field test, showed that in two weeks of study, there hasn't been any significant decrease in the amount of uniforms' permethrin. According to this study, using of permethrin-treated clothing is a useful technique, which makes a considerable protection against insects biting. Therefore using this technique is recommended for protecting military personnel or civilians, as an effective method against hematophagous insects

efficacy of Iranian and foreign dimethyl phthalate lotion and trench oinment against Anopheles Stephensi in laboratory conditions

The use of repellents is an important mean of personal protection against biting insects, as well as for combating diseases transmission by reducing man-vector contact. Although N, N- diethyl-3-m-toluamide [DEET] is effective and commonly used, but a number of biting Diptera are tolerant to DEET. In addition, there are some concerns about the safety of DEET and their allergic and toxic effects. Therefore, attend to other repellents. This study evaluated dimethyl phthalate [DMP], which was synthetized in Iran, for protection time [PT] against Anopheles Stephensi and compared its efficacy with two repellents foreign DMP and Trench oinment, under laboratory condition. This study was conducted to determine the repellent protection time and failure time [FT] by Barnard [1999] method. Our results indicated that PT of Iranian DMP against An.Stephensi was 274 +/- 8.04 which has no significant difference with the two others repellents. There were significant differences in FT among three repellents. The FT of Iranian DMP was significantly less than two other repellents. Iranian DMP lotion is comparable with foreign DMP lotion, but it needs to promote and to increase repellent FT

Characterization of Leishmania infection in rodents from endemic areas of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Between 1991-2000, Leishmania species were isolated and characterized by isoenzyme and molecular analysis from rodents caught in various parts of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In areas endemic for cutaneous leishmaniasis, parasites were observed by direct microscopy in smears from 18.6% of 566 specimens. L. major was isolated from 4 species: Rhombomys opimus, Meriones libycus, Tatera indica and Mer. hurrianae. L. turanica was isolated from R. opimus for the first time in this country. In endemic areas of visceral leishmaniasis, parasites were observed in liver and spleen from 13.7% of 504 rodents. Two species were positive on culture; promastigotes isolated from Mer. persicus were characterized as L. donovani zymodeme LON50 and from Mesocricetus auratus as L. infantum LON49