A brief history of the genus Leishmania (Protozoa: Kinetoplastida) in the Americas with particular reference to Amazonian Brazil

RESUMO

First recognized as a cause of human disease, the genus Leishmania (Protozoa Kinetoplastida Trypanosomatidae) has been found to include numerous species infecting a wide variety of mammals, among which the parasites are transmitted by many different species of blood-sucking phlebotomine sandflies (Diptera Psychodidae Phlebotominae). Transmission is not thought to be a haphazard affair, however, but to involve relatively specific mammal/sandfly combinations, dictated by environmental and other barriers. Major events in the history of Leishmania and leishmaniasis in the Americas are reviewed, with particular emphasis placed on ecology, taxonomy, and the role of some parasites as pathogens of man. The neotropical leishmanias were probably all sylvatic in origin and, by virtue of its unusually rich and varied fauna, Amazonia is rich, too, in Leishmania species.