spatial distribution and molecular identification of leishmania species from endemic foci of south-eastern iran

background: cutaneous leishmaniasis constitutes a major public health problem in many parts of the world including iran. the primary objective of this study was to identify leishmania spe­cies in endemic districts of kerman province, south-eastern iran . methods: this study was conducted by random sampling as cross- sectional descriptive between 2008 and 2010. overall, 203 skin scraping smears were taken from the patients. nested -pcr was performed to amplify variable minicircle fragments of leishmania kdna. results: bam was the most infected district (71.1%), followed by kerman (14.7%), jiroft (5.4%), baft (2.7%), sirjan (1.6%), shahr-e babak (1.5%) and others (3.0%).  l. tropica was the most common species identified (194 cases, 95.6%), while l. major was found in only 9 cases (4.4%). of 203 identified patients, all species in bam (l07 cases), kerman (32 cases), jiroft (l6 cases) and shahr-e- babak (l1 cases) were detected as l. tropica , whereas infected subjects in baft and sir­jan showed l. tropica or l. major . characterization of leishmania species resulted in generation of 750 bp and 560 bp fragments, corresponding to those of l. tropica and l. major , respectively. conclusion: l. tropica is the main species (95.6%) caused acl in endemic areas of kerman prov­ince; however l. major is present in low level (4.4%).