Prevalence and Association of Trypanosomes and in Tsetse Flies from the Kafue National Park in Zambia.

Tsetse flies are obligate hematophagous vectors of animal and human African trypanosomosis. They cyclically transmit pathogenic species. The endosymbiont is suggested to play a role in facilitating the susceptibility of tsetse flies to trypanosome infections. Therefore, this study was aimed at determining the prevalence of and trypanosomes circulating in tsetse flies and checking whether an association exists between trypanosomes and infections in tsetse flies from Kafue National Park in Zambia. A total of 326 tsetse flies were sampled from the Chunga and Ngoma areas of the national park. After DNA extraction was conducted, the presence of and trypanosome DNA was checked using PCR. The Chi-square test was carried out to determine whether there was an association between the presence of and trypanosome infections. Out of the total tsetse flies collected, the prevalence of and trypanosomes was 21.8% and 19.3%, respectively. The prevalence of was 22.2% in and 19.6% in . In relation to sampling sites, the prevalence of was 26.0% in Chunga and 21.0% in Ngoma. DNA of trypanosomes was detected in 18.9% of and 21.4% of . The prevalence of trypanosomes was 21.7% and 6.0% for Ngoma and Chunga, respectively. The prevalences of trypanosome species detected in this study were 6.4%, 4.6%, 4.0%, 3.7%, 3.1%, and 2.5% for , , , , Tsavo, and , respectively. Out of 63 trypanosome infected tsetse flies, 47.6% of the flies also carried and the remaining flies were devoid of . A statistically significant association was found between and trypanosomes ( < 0.001) infections in tsetse flies. Our findings indicated that presence of increases the susceptibility of tsetse flies to trypanosome infections and could be a potential candidate for symbiont-mediated vector control in these tsetse species.