ORIGINAL PAPER Detection of Dirofilaria repens and Dirofilaria immitis DNA in mosquitoes from Belarus Tatiana uleșco 1 & Tatiana Volkova 2 & Svetlana Yashkova 3 & Alexandru Tomazatos 4 & Heidrun von Thien 4 & Renke Lühken 4 & Egbert Tannich 4,5 Received: 21 March 2016 /Accepted: 4 May 2016 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016 Abstract During the last two decades, Belarus faces an in- crease of human cases of Dirofilaria (Nematoda, Spirurida, Onchocercidae) infections. However, comprehensive analyses explaining this development and the identification of mosqui- to vector species are missing. Here, we present results using temperature data from Belarus and show that the annual num- ber of human Dirofilaria cases is significantly correlated with the yearly average temperatures (Spearman’s rho = 0.49, p <0.05) and the average sum of potential Dirofilaria trans- mission days (Spearman’ s rho = 0.46, p < 0.05), suggesting that autochthonous transmission is at least in part responsible for the increasing number of clinical Dirofilaria cases in the country. In addition, 467 female mosquitoes were collected from different sampling sites in the regions of Brest and Minsk, which were analyzed by molecular methods for the presence of Dirofilaria repens and Dirofilaria immitis DNA, respectively. Two pools (5.56 %) were tested positive for Dirofilaria (estimated infection rate per 100 specimens = 0.44, 95 % confidence interval = 0.08–1.43), comprising one Anopheles claviger s.l. pool that was positive for D. repens and one Culex pipiens s.l./Culex torrentium pool positive for D. immitis DNA. This, to our knowledge, is the first molecular evidence for the presence of Dirofilaria in mosquitoes from Belarus, suggesting a high probability of autochthonous Dirofilaria transmission in the country. Keywords Dirofilaria immitis . Dirofilaria repens . Surveillance . Mosquito . Belarus Introduction The filarioid nematodes Dirofilaria immitis (Leidy, 1856) and Dirofilaria repens Railliet & Henry, 1911 (Nematoda, Spirurida, Onchocercidae) are transmitted by mosquitoes, pri- marily causing cardiopulmonary or subcutaneous dirofilariasis in dogs, respectively. Humans are aberrant hosts, i.e., with exception of few studies reporting adult females or even microfilariae (Poppert et al. 2009; Sergiev et al. 2009; Fedianina 2010; Fedianina et al. 2011, 2013; Bronshteyn et al. 2013), the parasite does usually not develop to the fertile adult stage (Simón et al. 2012). Nevertheless, infections in humans can cause subcutaneous nodules, local swelling through sub- cutaneous migration of the worm, and even severe clinical manifestations affecting various organs (e.g., brain or lung) (Pampiglione and Rivasi 2000; Poppert et al. 2009). The most common are eye infections, which are found in particular dur- ing the migratory phase of the parasites. Recent epidemiological studies indicate the emergence of dirofilariasis in Eastern Europe. The first autochthonous hu- man infections in Poland and Latvia were detected in the years 2010 and 2011 (Melbarde-Gorkusa et al. 2011; Cielecka et al. 2012; Borkowski et al. 2014). In the last two decades, * Renke Lühken luehken@bnitm.de 1 Institute of Zoology, Academy of Sciences of Moldova, Chisinau, Moldova 2 Scientific and Practical Center of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus for Biological Resources, Minsk, Belarus 3 Ministry of Health of the Republic of Belarus, State Republican Center of Hygiene, Epidemiology and Public Health, Minsk, Belarus 4 Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, WHO Collaborating Centre for Arbovirus and Haemorrhagic Fever Reference and Research National Reference Centre for Tropical Infectious Diseases, Bernhard-Nocht-Straße 74, 20359 Hamburg, Germany 5 Centre for Infection Research (DZIF), partner site Hamburg-Luebeck-Borstel, Hamburg, Germany Parasitol Res DOI 10.1007/s00436-016-5118-y