the epidemiological study of cutaneous leishmaniasis in khorram-shahr city, khuzestan province, south-west of iran

the world health organization (who) has supported and recommended study and research on the various aspects of leishmaniasis which is one of the six major tropical region diseases. cutaneous leishmaniasis is considered as a common parasitic disease in iran. considering the fact that few studies have been conducted about some centers of disease such as khorram-shahr and the information about the status of cutaneous leishmaniasis in the foci of the disease are very low so this study was performed to determine the frequency of patients with cutaneous leishmaniasis and the epidemiological situation in khorram-shahr city. clinical samples consisted of all the confirmed cases that referred to all health centers of khorram-shar city during 2009-2010 with the symptoms of coetaneous leishmaniasis and the presence of amastigotes in giemsa-stained smears.this is a descriptive cross-sectional study. information about subjects such as citizenship, age, gender, number and location of ulcers, location (city or village), health centers and diagnosis of the disease were collected and interpreted with spss software using descriptive statistics. the incidence rate of disease in 327 patients was 2.07 per thousand persons. around 68.1 percent of patients were more than 15 years old and most of the cases (62.3 percent) were found in the males. a total of 44 percent of patients had one ulcer and 46.4 percent of the wounds were observed on the hands and then feet, face and other parts of the body. a total of 65.75 percent were in the urban areas and most of cases were observed during january and february (37.6 percent). according to the environmental conditions for the sand activity of flies in some months in this area, the prevention and treatment of patients in urban and rural areas of khorram-shahr is a key priority.