Epidemiological Aspects of Visceral Leishmaniasis in Baft District, Kerman Province, Southeast of Iran

• Published in: Iranian journal of parasitology Vol. 6; no. 1
• Main Authors: H Mahmoudvand, M Mohebali, I Sharifi, H Keshavarz, H Hajjaran, B Akhoundi, S Jahanbakhsh, M Zarean, A Javadi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Tehran University of Medical Sciences 01.03.2011
• Subjects: Direct agglutination test; Human; Iran; Sero-epidemiology; Visceral leishmaniasis
• ISSN: 1735-7020; 2008-238X

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 randomized cluster sampling. In addition, blood samples were collected from 30 domestic dogs from the same areas. All the collected blood sam­ples were tested by direct agglutination test (DAT) for the detection of anti-Leishmania  antibod­ies in both human and dog using the cut-off value of ≥1:3200 and ≥ 1:320, respectively. Parasitologi­cal, molecular, and pathological were performed on infected dogs. Chi-square and Fisher exact tests were used to compare sero-prevalence values. Results: From 1476 collected human serum samples, 23 (1.55%) showed anti-Leishmania antibod­ies at titers of 1:800 and 1:1600 whereas 14 (0.95%) showed anti-Leishmania infantum antibodies at titers of   ≤ 1:3200.  No statistically significant difference was found between male (1.18 %) and female (0.69%) sero-prevalence (P=0.330). Children of 5-8 years showed the high­est sero-prevalence rate (3.22%).  Seven out of 30 domestic dogs (23%) showed anti-Leishmania antibodies at titers ≤1:320. Leishmania infantum was identified in five infected dogs by nested - PCR assay. Conclusion: It seems that visceral leishmaniasis is being endemic in southern villages of Baft district, southeast of Iran.