the patient had visceral leishmaniasis (kala-azar), successfully treated with 30 intramuscular injections of sodium stibogluconate (SSG). Polymerase chain reaction showed Leishmania donovani DNA in a buffy coat specimen. Post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis (PKDL) is a chronic skin rash usually seen in apparently cured kala-azar patients in East Africa and South Asia. In the Indian subcontinent,...

Leishmania donovani in India causes visceral infection (kala-azar) and dermal infection (post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis). We report here the identification of polymorphism in a well-defined genetic locus among the Leishmania parasites causing the visceral and dermal manifestations, in a comparison of 15 post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis and 12 kala-azar patient isolates.

A novel self-crosslinked and reducible peptide was synthesized for stable formation of nanoscale complexes with an siRNA-PEG conjugate to enhance transfection efficiency in serum containing condition without compromising cytotoxicity. A fusogenic peptide, KALA, with two cysteine residues at both terminal ends was crosslinked via disulfide linkages under mild DMSO oxidation condition. The reduci...

BACKGROUND An improved understanding in transmission variation of kala-azar is fundamental to conduct surveillance and implementing disease prevention strategies. This study investigated the spatio-temporal patterns and hotspot detection for reporting kala-azar cases in Vaishali district based on spatial statistical analysis. METHODS Epidemiological data from the study area during 2007-2011 w...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE Of the two reservoirs of infection of kala-azar i.e., patients of kala-azar and post kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis (PKDL), PKDL provides easy access for the sandfly to pick up the parasites. In the last epidemic of 1977 in India, the importance of PKDL as a potential cause of increase in number of kala-azar cases was ignored. During recent years, we found an increase in ...

1. Rogers L. The epidemic malarial fever of Assam, or kala-azar, successfully eradicated from tea garden lines. Br Med J. 1898; 2:891–2. 2. Price JD, Rogers L. The uniform success of segregation measures in eradicating Kala-azar from Assam tea gardens: it is bearing on the probable mode of infection. BMJ. 1914;1:285–9. http://dx.doi. org/10.1136/bmj.1.2771.285 3. Kaul SM, Sharma RS, Borgohain B...

uncommon but grave complication. During the recent outbreak of kala-azar in Calcutta that commenced after the Bengal famine of 1943. increasing numbers of seriously complicated cases of kala-azar were seen (Sen Gupta, 1947) and one of the grave complications was pneumococcal meningitis. During the last two years, 1945 and 1946, four cases of kala-azar who had developed this complication were ad...

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...

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...