seroepidemiological study on canine visceral leishmaniasis in meshkin-shahr district, ardabil province, northwest of iran during 2006-2007

background: this study aimed to determine the seroprevalence of canine visceral leishmaniasis in meshkin-shahr district as endemic areas of human visceral leishmaniasis (hvl) for presenting control program of hvl to health authorities.  methods: a seroepidemiological study to determine seroprevalence of canine visceral leishmaniasis (cvl) among owner­ship dogs using direct agglutination tests (dat) in 21 villages of meshkin-shahr district, ardabil province was carried out from june 2006 to august 2007. three hundred and eighty four ownership dogs were selected by multi-stage cluster sam­pling. chi-square and fisher exact tests were used to compare seroprevalence values relative to gender, age and clinical signs. results: of the 384 serum samples tested by dat, 17.4 %( 95%c.i, 13.2%-20.8%) were positive (1:320 and higher). no statistical significant difference was found between male (16.5%) and female (20.2%) seroprevalence (p=0.416). the high­est seroprevalence rate (64.2%) was observed among the ownership dogs of three years age and above. only 25.4% of the seropositive dogs had clinical signs and symptoms. the most clinical signs among symptomatic dogs were cachexia (75%) and alopecia (36.5%). conclusion: the majority of seropositive dogs (74.6%) lived in endemic areas of meshkin-shahr district were asympto­matic. it seems that all symptomatic and asymptomatic infected dogs are the most important risk factors for human infec­tion in vl endemic areas.