Visceral leishmaniasis (VL), commonly known as kala-azar in Indian subcontinent is a major public health problem and >90% of cases are from India, Bangladesh, southern Sudan, Nepal and north-east Brazil. VL affects more than 1,00,000 persons every year in India and occurs epidemically and endemically in well-defined areas in the eastern parts of the country, mainly Bihar, West Bengal, the easte...

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...

In a recent issue of the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, Ryan et al. (6) reported antileishmanial serologic data based on soluble antigens from promastigotes cultivated in a proteinfree medium. Using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), it was possible to detect immunoglobulin M (IgM) and IgG antibody in patients with cutaneous leishmaniasis (143 sera) and visceral leishmaniasis (12...

background: visceral leishmaniasis (vl) is caused by leishmania infantum in mediterranean basin and is an endemic disease in some parts of iran. canines are the main reservoirs of vl in most of the endemic areas. different serological methods have been introduced for diagnosis of canine visceral leishmaniasis (cvl). objective: in this survey a fucose-mannose ligand (fml) elisa, using native l. ...

clinically infected dogs have been identified as the main reservoir hosts of visceral leishmaniasis (vl)caused by leishmania infantum. recently asymptomatic infected dogs were regarded to be as important asclinically ill dogs. this study was aimed to determine the seroprevalence of l. infantum infection amongasymptomatic dogs in the southwest and central parts of iran and to investigate possibl...

BACKGROUND Visceral leishmaniasis (kala-azar) is an endemic disease in some areas of Iran. A cross- sectional study was conducted for sero-epidemiological survey of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) in Baft district from Kerman Province, southeast of Iran. METHODS Blood samples were collected from children up to 12 years old and 10% of adult population from Baft villages with a multi-stage randomiz...

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL), caused by the Leishmania donovani complex, is a vector-borne systemic disease, with a worldwide distribution causing high morbidity and mortality in the developing world. VL patients may be asymptomatic or they may present symptoms and findings of a systemic infection. The positive predictive value of clinical diagnosis in patients with typical symptoms is usually h...

An increased number of autochthonous visceral leishmaniasis (VL) cases has recently been reported in Bologna Province in northern Italy. Over six months from November 2012 to May 2013, 14 cases occurred, whereas the average number of cases per year was 2.6 (range: 0-8) in 2008 to 2012. VL was diagnosed in a median of 40 days (range: 15-120) from disease onset. This delay in diagnosis shows the ...

The objectives of this article were to discuss the rapid spread of visceral leishmaniasis in urban areas of Brazil and to raise practical questions and perspectives related to control of the disease. Among the proposed methods, the elimination of seropositive dogs is the most controversial and least accepted by society. Its impact on incidence rates varies among studies (positive in some and re...