Reports from the health center of Kerman Province, southern Iran showed an increasing of cutaneous leishmaniasis cases in Orzuieh Rural District, southwest of the province in 2003. The report encouraged the team to carry out an epidemiological survey in the district during 2003-2004. The objectives were to determine the ecology of sand flies, potential reservoir hosts and human infection. A tot...

BACKGROUND Informal payments for health care, which are common in many countries, can have negative effects on health care access, equity and health status as they lead people to forgo or delay seeking care, or to sell assets to pay for care. Many countries are putting reforms in place with the aim of reducing informal payments. In order to be successful, such policies should be informed by the...

BACKGROUND Breast cancer is the most common malignancy in Iranian women. Mutations in BRCA1 gene is one of the important genetic predisposing factors in breast cancer. This gene is a tumor suppressor that plays an important role in regulating the functions of RAD51 protein for strand invasion in homologous recombination repair. METHODS The BRCA1 gene has amplified in the DNA isolated from bre...

Dear Editor, The human development index (HDI) is a composite index calculated on the basis of three socioeconomic indicators that reflect three major dimensions of human development: longevity, educational attainment and standard of living to sufficiently capture the multidimensionality of human development. Longevity is measured by life expectancy at birth (LEB); educational attainment is mea...

aedi-Visna is a viral disease of sheep caused by a lentivirus. It is characterized by progressive interstitial pneumonia or meningoencephalitis. Sometimes arthritis, ill-thrift and indurative mastitis are observed. The disease most often progresses slowly, but irreversibly. The disease occurs in all major sheep producing countries with the exception of Australia, New Zealand, and Finland. The i...

background and purpose: health indices, regarding to their role in the development of society, are one of the most important indices at national level. success of national development programs is largely dependent on the establishment of appropriate goals at the health sector, among which access to healthcare facilities is an essential requirement. the aim of this study was to examine the dispa...

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...