Kala Azar in Patna

Impact of amphotericin-B in the treatment of kala-azar on the incidence of PKDL in Bihar, India.

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE Of the two reservoirs of infection of kala-azar i.e., patients of kala-azar and post kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis (PKDL), PKDL provides easy access for the sandfly to pick up the parasites. In the last epidemic of 1977 in India, the importance of PKDL as a potential cause of increase in number of kala-azar cases was ignored. During recent years, we found an increase in ...

Trial of Pentamidine Isothionate in Kala-Azar Cases in the Patna Medical College Hospital (Preliminary Report)

Widal reaction in Kala-azar.

Enteric fever(l) and Kala-azar (vis-ceral leishmaniasis) are endemic, in and around Patna. Kala-azar usually has an indolent course but it can present as an acute disease with fever, anorexia and vomiting(2,3). At times both the diseases are so closely similar in their presentation , that differential diagnosis is not always clear, Widal test, inspite of its limitations and fallacies is still w...

Vector density and the control of kala-azar in Bihar, India.

Bihar, India has been in the grip of kala-azar for many years. Its rampant and severe spread has made life miserable in most parts of the state. Such conditions require a comprehensive understanding of this affliction. The numbers coming out of the districts prone to the disease in the north and south Ganges have provided us with several startling revelations, as there are striking uniformities...

Resistance of sandflies to DDT in Kala-azar endemic districts of Bihar, India.

Editor – Vector resistance to insecticides has been highlighted by Kasap et al. in their comparative study relating to malaria in Turkey (1). In India, phlebotomine sandflies used to be considered highly susceptible to all insecticides; but indiscriminate use poses a problem of resistance, for example, in Bihar, where spraying with DDT has continued since 1976 (2). Resistance to DDT in Phleboto...