Molecular Diagnosis of Leishmaniasis, Species Identification and Phylogenetic Analysis

Leishmaniases are vector-borne infections caused by protozoa of genus Leishmania, affecting various mammals, mainly carnivores and humans. Clinical patent disease is relatively easy to be diagnosed and laboratory-confirmed by direct detection of the parasite in clinical samples. However, in subclinical cases detection of the causative agent is possible by highly sensitive diagnostic techniques such as molecular assays. Different molecular methods have been developed and evaluated including multilocus enzyme electrophoresis, conventional poly‐ merase chain reaction (PCR) based assays, quantitative Real Time PCR as well as simplified PCR methods.