LEISHMANIASIS: AN INCREASING THREAT

摘要

Leishmaniases comprise a group of diseases with a spectrum of clinical manifestation ranging from self-healing cutaneous ulcers to severe disease with high mortality. Leishmaniasis is now endemic in 88 countries, including southern Europe, with some 350 million people living in endemic areas. An estimated 12 million people are infected each year including 1.5 million new cases. Leishmaniasis has been included amongst the six entities on the World Health Organization/Tropical Disease Research list of most important diseases. The current interest in the disease arises from a number of reasons. New foci of disease have been reported, viz. visceral leishmaniasis in Nicaragua, and insect and vertebral hosts have been reported from the Sudan and Saudi Arabia.