Costly and onerous treatment as well as resistance to drugs and pesticides are major challenges to the ambitious goal of eliminating visceral leishmaniasis. However, Dr Robert Killick-Kendrick is optimistic about recent advances in treatment and control.

Human leishmaniasis is a spectral disease that includes asymptomatic self-resolving infection, localized skin lesions, and progressive visceral leishmaniasis. With some overlap, visceral and cutaneous leishmaniasis are usually caused by different species of Leishmania. This review focuses on host responses to infection with the species that cause visceral leishmaniasis, as they contrast with sp...

In this retrospective study, the usefulness of a PCR performed on serum for primary diagnosis and monitoring of Mediterranean visceral leishmaniasis (MVL) was assessed. In the case of primary diagnosis of MVL, the serum PCR showed a sensitivity of 97% and a specificity of 95%, with positive and negative predictive values of 94 and 97%, respectively.

OBJECTIVES Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is endemic in Brazil and appears to occur in epidemic form in the state of Ceará. Few epidemiologic studies have been done on VL in this state. The aim of this study is to establish the epidemiologic pattern of VL in Fortaleza City and to show how urbanization has occurred in recent years. METHODS Data were obtained from the State Health Department of Fo...

This paper describes an epidemiologic investigation carried out in Imbiribeira district, where a canine visceral leishmaniasis case was recorded. Despite the absence of seropositive dogs and sand flies, these findings are not sufficient to discard the occurrence of a zoonotic cycle of visceral leishmaniasis in Recife.

toxicity and drug resistance against pentavalent antimonials, medications of choice in treatment of leishmaniasis for more than 5 decades, have become important subjects globally. this study was a randomized, open labeled trial that was designed to determine efficacy and safety of imod as a novel herbal immunomodulator drug for treatment of canine visceral leishmaniasis (cvl).twenty healthy mon...

background: leishmaniasis is a tropical disease that is endemic in some areas of iran, including east azerbaijan . ifn-γ is one of the cytokines that triggers cell-mediated immunity, thus initiating elimination of the infection. this case-control study was performed to investigate the association between the polymorphism of the ifn-γ gene at the +874a/t locus and visceral leishmaniasis (vl). me...

Three years after the first report of Lutzomyia longipalpis in Clorinda, Argentina, a border city near Asunción, Paraguay, the city was surveyed again. Lu. longipalpis was found clustered in the same neighbourhoods in 2007 as in 2004, even though the scattered distribution of canine visceral leishmaniasis was more related to the traffic of dogs through the border.

A Scottish girl acquired visceral leishmaniasis (kala-azar) while on holiday in Majorca. She presented with the infection, six months later, in Scotland. Because of inexperience with the disease and a degree of scepticism unnecessary investigations were carried out resulting in a delay in treatment.