Lupoid leishmaniasis, a clinical form of cutaneous leishmaniasis, was described by Christopherson in 1923 [1]. It is a chronic condition that typically follows acute cutaneous leishmaniasis infection. In this clinical form, 1 to 2 years after healing of the acute lesion, new papules and nodules appear at the margin of the remaining scar. The papules have a granulomatous, lupoid appearance and a...

Leishmaniasis is a neglected vector-borne tropical infection considered to be a disease of the poor. Concentrated in poverty-stricken countries within Southeast Asia, East Africa, and Latin America, it is also endemic in several Mediterranean countries. The management of the heterogeneous syndromes determined by parasites belonging to the genus Leishmania is particularly difficult in developed,...

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is caused by various species of the genus Leishmania. Internalization of Leishmania into host cells is facilitated by a large number of receptors, and therefore no panacea is available for the treatment of leishmaniasis. We previously demonstrated the requirement of host membrane cholesterol in the entry of Leishmania into macrophages by cholesterol depletion using m...

BACKGROUND An important factor influencing the transmission dynamics of vector-borne diseases is the contribution of hosts with different parasitemia (no. of parasites per ml of blood) to the infected vector population. Today, estimation of this contribution is often impractical since it relies exclusively on limited-scale xenodiagnostic or artificial feeding experiments (i.e., measuring the pr...

Control of the intracellular parasite Leishmania (L.) requires activation strong type 1 cellular immune responses. Towards this goal, in present study, a multiepitope chimeric protein named LiChimera was encapsulated into cationic liposomes and its protective efficacy against experimental visceral leishmaniasis investigated. Liposomal conferred significant protection L. infantum as evidenced by...

Visceral leishmaniasis remains a public health problem worldwide. This illness was included by the World Health Organization in the list of neglected tropical diseases targeted for elimination by 2015. The widespread emergence of resistance to pentavalent antimonials in India where half cases occur globally and the unavailability of a vaccine in clinical use constitute major obstacles in achiev...

We argue that the strategy of culling infected dogs is not the most efficient way to control zoonotic visceral leishmaniasis (ZVL) and that, in the presence of alternative control strategies with better potential results, official programs of compulsory culling adopted by some countries are inefficient and unethical. We base our arguments on a mathematical model for the study of control strateg...

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) or kala-azar is an infection disease caused by hemiflagellate protozoan parasites (Leishmania donovani) and transmitted to humans by the phlebotomine sandfly. Leishmaniasis is distributed worldwide and 13 million people are estimated to be infected, with about 1.8 million new cases each year. All antileishmanial drugs are toxic and most have to be used parenterally f...

The visceral leishmaniasis (VL) has a wide geographic distribution, with 90% of its occurrence concentrated in six countries: Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, India, South Sudan and Sudan. Dogs are the main reservoir in the VL transmission, not only for their close relationship and/or coexistence with men, but also for their immunological inability in responding to the disease successfully. For th...

An analysis of reported cases of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) was performed using the data registered in the southern Ecuadorian Amazon region during 27 years from 1986 to 2012. The cases/subjects with both the suspected CL lesions and the amastigote-positive results were recruited for the analysis. The yearly occurrence of cases showed a markedly higher number during the six years, 1988 and 19...