Background: Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is an endemic disease in some parts of Iran. Many techniques have been used for diagnosis of VL, among which the urine based la-tex agglutination test (KAtex) is a promising one. Objective: To compare three diag-nostic tests of VL including KAtex, ELISA and Direct Agglutination Test (DAT) in VL patients and healthy controls in the south west of Iran. Meth...

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. ...

BACKGROUND Kala-azar is a multisystem infection of the reticuloendothelial system. Various hematologic abnormalities have been described in kala-azar including hemophagocytic syndrome (HPS).  METHODS We reviewed bone marrow aspirate smears from 18 documented cases of kala-azar complicated by HPS.  RESULTS The bone marrow smears were hypercellular with erythroid hyperplasia. Megaloblastic ch...

Visceral leishmaniases (VL) or kala-azar is the most dreaded and devastating amongst the various forms of leishmaniases. The disease, though localized in certain areas only, has gained immense importance because of high mortality rate, mainly in children. The parasite is responsible for a spectrum of clinical syndromes, which can, in most extreme cases, go from an asymptomatic infection to a fa...

INTRODUCTION Elimination of kala-azar is planned for South Asia requiring good surveillance along with other strategies. We assessed surveillance in Gaffargaon upazila (a subdistrict of 13 unions) of Mymensingh district, Bangladesh highly endemic for kala-azar. METHODS In 4703 randomly sampled households, within nine randomly sampled villages, drawn from three randomly sampled unions, we acti...

UNLABELLED Leishmania donovani is an intracellular protozoan parasite that causes leishmaniasis, which can range from a self-healing cutaneous disease to a fatal visceral disease depending on the infecting species. Miltefosine is currently the latest and only oral antileishmanial that came out of drug discovery pipelines in the past few decades, but recent reports indicate a significant decline...

Post Kala-azar Dermal Leishmaniasis (PKDL) is a chronic but not life-threatening disease; patients generally do not demand treatment, deserve much more attention because PKDL is highly relevant in the context of Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL) elimination. There is no standard guideline for diagnosis and treatment for PKDL. A species-specific PCR on slit skin smear demonstrated a sensitivity of 93....

Antigen-combining site arises by noncovalent association of the variable domain of the immunoglobulin heavy chain (VH) with that of the light chain (VL). To analyze the invariant features of the binding region (VL-VH domain interface), we compared the known immunoglobulin three-dimensional structures by a variety of methods. The interface forms a close-packed, twisted, prism-shaped "beta-barrel...

Laith Emil Azar Department of Mathematics, Al Al-Bayt University, P.O. Box. 130095, Mafraq 25113, Jordan Correspondence should be addressed to Laith Emil Azar, azar [email protected] Received 23 October 2007; Accepted 2 January 2008 Recommended by Shusen Ding By introducing some parameters we establish an extension of Hardy-Hilbert’s integral inequality and the corresponding inequality for series...

11 Summary Despite the fact that anemia is one of the most striking clinical features of visceral leishmaniasis (kala-azar), the factors involved in the pathogenesis are not fully understood. The cause of anemia seen in these patients is often multifactorial including sequestration and destruction of the erythrocytes in the enlarged spleen, hemophagocytosis and alterations in erythrocyte membra...