Word: phlebotomus
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...soon became apparent that the carrier was the female Phlebotomus orientalis sand fly, which passes the deadly protozoan to humans in an unusual manner (see box). The tiny insect, which cannot fly very high or far, inhabits the vast, red acacia forests, where it bites its victims in order to get protein-rich blood to develop its eggs. When female sand flies bit people driven by war or famine into the forests from areas where kala-azar was already endemic, the flies picked up the disease themselves, ready to be passed...
...horror that haunts this valley is a disease called verruga (literal translation: warts). It is transmitted by an almost invisible sandfly (Phlebotomus verrucarum), smaller than a mosquito, which bites only at night. Penetrating the finest netting and seams in clothing, the insect infects its victim with a parasite (Bartonella bacilliformis) that destroys red blood cells, produces a high fever and often kills within a few days...
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