The Benefits of Puckering Up to a Sand Fly

As unappetizing as it sounds, fly saliva may turn out to be a cure for a potentially deadly parasitic infection.

Federal researchers announced this week that they had prevented mice from developing leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease that can cause flesh-eating infections or fatal infestations of internal organs, by inoculating mice with a component derived from the saliva of a sand fly. Leishmaniasis, which affects an estimated 12 million people in South and Central America, Africa and the Middle East, is transmitted by a fly bite.

“Rather than targeting the parasite, as is typical, our researchers produced a vaccine to the saliva of the insect that transmits the parasite,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, an arm of the National Institutes of Health, which funded the research.