An investigation of the effects of environmental and ecologic factors on cutaneous leishmaniasis in the old world: a systematic review study

• Published in: Reviews on environmental health Vol. 36; no. 1; pp. 117 - 128
• Main Authors: Mohammadbeigi, Abolfazl, Khazaei, Salman, Heidari, Hamidreza, Asgarian, Azadeh, Arsangjang, Shahram, Saghafipour, Abedin, Mohammadsalehi, Narges, Ansari, Hossein
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Germany De Gruyter 26.03.2021; Walter de Gruyter GmbH
• Subjects: Africa; Arid regions; Asia; Australasia; Climate; Climatology; Cutaneous leishmaniasis; Early warning systems; Earthquakes; ecologic; Ecological effects; Elevation; Emergency communications systems; Environmental effects; Environmental factors; Environmental health; Europe; Geography; Health problems; Incidence; Land cover; Leishmaniasis, Cutaneous - epidemiology; Leishmaniasis, Cutaneous - parasitology; Livestock housing; Parasitic diseases; Rainfall; review; Search engines; Seismic activity; Semi arid areas; Soil conditions; Soil temperature; Systematic review; Temperature; Topology; Vector-borne diseases; Weather; weather condition; Asia; Australasia; Europe; Africa; ecologic; weather condition; environmental factors; cutaneous leishmaniasis; review
• ISSN: 0048-7554; 2191-0308
• DOI: 10.1515/reveh-2020-0066

Leishmaniasis is a neglected and widespread parasitic disease that can lead to serious health problems. The current review study aimed to synthesize the relationship between ecologic and environmental factors (e.g., weather conditions, climatology, temperature and topology) and the incidence of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) in the Old World. A systematic review was conducted based on English, and Persian articles published from 2015 to 2020 in PubMed/Medline, Science Direct, Web of Science and Google Scholar. Keywords used to search articles were leishmaniasis, environmental factors, weather condition, soil, temperature, land cover, ecologic* and topogr*. All articles were selected and assessed for eligibility according to the titles or abstracts. The quality screening process of articles was carried out by two independent authors. The selected articles were checked according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. A total of 827 relevant records in 2015-2020 were searched and after evaluating the articles, 23 articles met the eligibility criteria; finally, 14 full-text articles were included in the systematic review. Two different categories of ecologic/environmental factors (weather conditions, temperature, rainfall/precipitation and humidity) and land characteristics (land cover, slope, elevation and altitude, earthquake and cattle sheds) were the most important factors associated with CL incidence. Temperature and rainfall play an important role in the seasonal cycle of CL as many CL cases occurred in arid and semiarid areas in the Old World. Moreover, given the findings of this study regarding the effect of weather conditions on CL, it can be concluded that designing an early warning system is necessary to predict the incidence of CL based on different weather conditions.