Seroprevalence Survey of Visceral Leishmaniasis among Children up to 12 Years old and Domestic Dogs in Rural Areas of Dehloran District, Ilam Province of West Part of Iran, 2014

• Main Authors: Sasan Khazaei, Mehdi Mohebali, Behnaz Akhoundi, Belal Armand, Bahram Kazemi, Mohammad Gorgipour, Eznollah Azargashsb, Hooshang Khazan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences 2017-04-01
• Series: Novelty in Biomedicine
• Subjects: Visceral Leishmaniasis, Direct Agglutination Test, Human, Dog, Iran
• Online Access: http://journals.sbmu.ac.ir/nbm/article/view/13047
• ISSN: 2345-3346; 2345-3907

<h2>Background: Visceral leishmaniasis (VL), caused by Leishmania infantum (L. infantum), is a life-threatening vector-borne parasitic disease is distributed in some parts of the world. The disease is endemic in some parts of Iran. This study was aimed to determine the seroprevalence of VL among children and domestic dogs (as a reservoir of the parasite) in Dehloran, west of Iran.</h2><p><strong>M</strong><strong>aterials and Methods: </strong>This cross-sectional study was carried out in Dehloran County. The blood samples of 872 children up to 12 years old and 52 dogs were collected from 10 villages of Dehloran using randomly-clustered sampling method. Sera were separated from all peripheral blood samples and tested by direct agglutination test (DAT). Anti-<em>Leishmania infantum</em> antibodies at titers of ≥1:800 and ≥1:80 were considered as <em>Leishmania infantum</em> infection in human and dog, respectively.</p><p><strong>R</strong><strong>es</strong><strong>ults: </strong>In general, among 872 human samples, 1.03% of samples had anti-<em>Leishmania</em> antibody with 1:1600 titers and 1.26% had 1:800 titers. In addition, from 52 dog samples, 21.15% of dogs had a titer of ≥1:320 and 25% had 1:80 and 1:160 titers.</p><p><strong>C</strong><strong>onclusion: </strong>Our findings indicate that the seropositive dogs in the studied areas are considerable and <em>L. infantum</em> may be circulated between human and domestic dog in the studied area. Further study of isolation and molecular identification of <em>Leishmania</em> spp. is recommended.</p>