• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.247-253
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• 2007

Leishmania (L.) tropica is a causative agent of cutaneous leishmaniasis, and occasionally of visceral or viscerotropic leishmaniasis in humans. Murine models of Leishmania infection have been proven to be useful for elucidation of mechanisms for pathogenesis and immunity in leishmaniasis. The aim of this study was to establish a murine model for human viscerotropic leishmaniasis, and the growth pattern of L. tropica was studied in different tissues of BALB/c mice in order to find out whether the parasite visceralizes in this murine model. L. major was used as a control as this species is known to cause a progressive infection in BALB/c mice. L. tropica or L. major was injected into the footpad of mice, and thickness of footpad, parasite loads in different tissues, and the weight of the spleen and lymph node were determined at different intervals. Results showed that L. tropica visceralizes to the spleen and grows there while its growth is controlled in footpad tissues. Dissemination of L. tropica to visceral organs in BALB/c mice was similar to the growth patterns of this parasite in human viscerotropic leishmaniasis. The BALB/c model of L. tropica infection may be considered as a good experimental model for human diseases.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.189-191
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• 2014

Visceral leishmaniasis or kala-azar is an endemic parasitic disease in some parts of the world which is characterized by fever, splenomegaly, and pancytopenia in most of the cases. Herein we report an 11 month-old male infant with diagnosis of kala-azar who presented with pallor, hepatosplenomegaly, failure to gain weight, and no history of fever. Surprisingly, fever started after beginning of meglumine antimoniate treatment in this patient. As far as we are aware of, this is a rare presentation of visceral leishmaniasis. Therefore, clinicians especially in endemic areas are highly recommended to include kala-azar among differential diagnosis of unexplained anemia without fever to prevent misdiagnosis of this potentially fatal, but treatable condition.

• Advances in pediatric surgery
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.35-38
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• 2004

Visceral leishmaniasis is a life-threatening systemic infection caused by a protozoa of the genus leishmania and transmitted by sandfly. We report the first case of visceral leishmanaisis in Korea. The patient was a one-year-old girl admitted with the symptoms of fever, abdominal distension. pancytopenia, and purpura. She traveled to Argentina 5 months ago, and has had symptoms such as fever and pale appearance. Laboratory findings were: WBC, 12.680/$mm^3$; Hg, 3.7g/dL; platelet, 100K; total bilirubin, 1.2mg/dL; AST/ALT, 48/10 U/L. CT scan and MRI showed hepato-splenomegaly. On laparotomy, excision of an accessory spleen and splenic hilar lymph nodes were performed. Many amastigotes were microscopically identified in histiocytes from the biopsy tissues. Sodium stibogluconate was administrated for 2 weeks, which did not relieve the symptoms. After administration of the additional Amphotericin B for 3 weeks, symptoms were improved.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.133-136
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• 2012

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is a life-threatening infection caused by Leishmania species. In addition to typical clinical findings as fever, hepatosplenomegaly, and cachexia, VL is associated with autoimmune phenomena. To date, VL mimicking or exacerbating various autoimmune diseases have been described, including systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), rheumatoid arthritis, and autoimmune hepatitis (AIH). Herein, we presented a patient with VL who had overlapping clinical features with SLE, AIH, as well as antimitochondrial antibody (AMA-M2) positive primary biliary cirrhosis.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.379-383
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• 2015

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) or kala-azar mainly affects children in endemic areas. This study was conducted to determine the seroprevalence of VL using direct agglutination test (DAT) in children living in rural districts of Alborz Province located 30 km from Tehran capital city of Iran. Multi-stage cluster random sampling was applied. Blood samples were randomly collected from 1,007 children under 10 years of age in the clusters. A total of 37 (3.7%) of the studied population showed anti-Leishmania infantum antibodies with titers of ${\geq}1:800$. There was a significant association between positive sera and various parts of the rural areas of Alborz Province (P<0.002). Two children with anti-Leishmania infantum antibodies titers of ${\geq}1:3,200$ indicated kala-azar clinical features and treated with anti-leishmaniasis drugs in pediatric hospital. The findings of this study indicated that Leishmania infection is prevalent in rural areas of Alborz Province. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the awareness and alertness among physicians and public health managers, particularly in high-risk rural areas of the province in Iran.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.54 no.6
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• pp.797-801
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• 2016

Heishui county, located in northwest Sichuan province, southwestern China, is an endemic area of zoonotic visceral leishmaniasis (VL) and is the most intractable area. VL is never destroyed in it. Asymptomatic dogs (Leishmania parasites have been diagnosed but clinically healthy) are considered to be a potential reservoir host in zoonotic VL area, and most can lead to infection of individuals, that is a new challenge for controlling VL in humans. The present study aimed to assess the Leishmania infection rate of asymptomatic dogs in Heishui county. Total 105 asymptomatic domestic dogs were gathered from 4 districts in Heishui county to investigate the infection rate with serological and molecular methods based on ELISA and kinetoplast minicircle DNA(kDNA) PCR, respectively. Out of 105 dogs, 44 (41.9%) were positive by more than 1 method; 21 (20.0%) were positive by ELISA, and 30 (28.6%) were positive by kDNA-PCR. Our study showed that Leishmania infection of domestic dogs which is clinically healthy is prevalent in the studied district, and the asymptomatic dogs infected by Leishmania may be the primary reason for the prevalence of visceral leishmaniasis in the area.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.60 no.6
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• pp.379-391
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• 2022

Leishmaniasis is a serious parasitic disease caused by Leishmania spp. transmitted through sandfly bites. This disease is a major public health concern worldwide. It can occur in 3 different clinical forms: cutaneous, mucocutaneous, and visceral leishmaniasis (CL, MCL, and VL, respectively), caused by different Leishmania spp. Currently, licensed vaccines are unavailable for the treatment of human leishmaniasis. The treatment and prevention of this disease rely mainly on chemotherapeutics, which are highly toxic and have an increasing resistance problem. The development of a safe, effective, and affordable vaccine for all forms of vector-borne disease is urgently needed to block transmission of the parasite between the host and vector. Immunological mechanisms in the pathogenesis of leishmaniasis are complex. IL-12-driven Th1-type immune response plays a crucial role in host protection. The essential purpose of vaccination is to establish a protective immune response. To date, numerous vaccine studies have been conducted using live/attenuated/killed parasites, fractionated parasites, subunits, recombinant or DNA technology, delivery systems, and chimeric peptides. Most of these studies were limited to animals. In addition, standardization has not been achieved in these studies due to the differences in the virulence dynamics of the Leishmania spp. and the feasibility of the adjuvants. More studies are needed to develop a safe and effective vaccine, which is the most promising approach against Leishmania infection.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.545-549
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• 2013

A 12-year-old spayed female mixed-bred dog presented with nasal bleeding of 2 days duration and a skin nodule in the left flank. No abnormalities were found in coagulation profiles and blood pressure. Cytological evaluation of the nodule revealed numerous characteristic round organisms having a nucleus and a bar within macrophages and in the background, consistent with leishmaniasis. In vitro culture was unsuccessful but PCR of the nodular aspirate identified the organisms as Leishmania infantum, and the final diagnosis was canine leishmaniasis. No history of travel to endemic countries was noted. Because the dog had received a blood transfusion 2 years before the illness, serological screening tests were performed in all donor dogs of the commercial blood bank using the commercial Leishmania ELISA test kit, and there were no positive results. Additional 113 dogs with hyperglobulinemia from Seoul were also screened with the same kits but no positive results were obtained. To the best of the author's knowledge this is the first autochthonous case of canine leishmaniasis in Korea.

• Journal of Korea Association of Health Promotion
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.77-83
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• 2004

Recently, peoples of travelling to endemic area of parasitit diseases are rapidly increased and the imported parasitic diseases by tourists have become a public health problem. Here author describess briefly about the imported parasitic in Korea. The 15 kinds of parasitic diseases, I.e., malaria, babesiosis, cutaneous leishmaniasis, visceral leishmaniasis, ancylostomiasis, cutaneous larva migrans, angiostrongylosis, gnathostomiasis,loiasis, heterophyiasis, urinary schistosomiasis, hydatis disease, pentastomiasis, cutaneous myiasis and syngamosis were imported during last thirty years. The most prevalent imported parasitic disease was malaria. Indigenous vivax malaria has been eradicated since 1970s. However imported malaria(1970~1985) was reported 107 cases of patient with a history of travel abroad. Futhermore a case of reemerging vivax malaria was patient were occurred in 2000.These parasitic disease are sometimes overlooked or misdiagnosed. There is a need to concern about travel medicine and imported parasitic diseases.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.44 no.1 s.137
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• pp.55-61
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• 2006

For treating Leishmania major infection in BALB/c mice, we used thalidomide in conjunction with glucantime. Groups of mice were challenged with $5{\time}10^3$ metacyclic promastigotes of L. major subcutaneously. A week after the challenge, drug treatment was started and continued for 12 days. Thalidomide was orally administrated 30 mg/kg/day and glucantime was administrated intraperitoneally (200 mg/kg/day). It was shown that the combined therapy is more effective than single therapies with each one of the drugs since the foot pad swelling in the group of mice received thalidomide and glucantime was significantly decreased (0.9 :t 0.2 mm) compared to mice treated with either glucantime, thalidomide, or carrier alone (1.2 :t 0.25, 1.4 :t 0.3, and 1.7 :t 0.27 mm, respectively). Cytokine study showed that the effect of thalidomide was not dependent on IL-12; however, it up-regulated IFN-yand down-regulated IL-10 production. Conclusively, thalidomide seems promising as a conjunctive therapy with antimony in murine model of visceral leishmaniasis.