Epidemiological features of cutaneous leishmaniasis endemic in hilly areas of district Karak, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa provinc
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Epidemiological features of cutaneous leishmaniasis endemic in hilly areas of district Karak, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan Mehboob Nawaz1 • Misbahud Din1
•
Ayyaz Khan1 • Asad Khan4 • Muhammad Ali1 • Siraj Ud Din2 • Khalid Aslam3
Received: 13 March 2020 / Accepted: 16 July 2020 Ó Indian Society for Parasitology 2020
Abstract Cutaneous leishmaniasis is a vector borne infection caused by flagellated parasitic protozoans of the genus Leishmania. This is an emergent threat and endemic in areas of tropic and sub-tropics and has a wider geographical distribution. This study was aimed to find the epidemiological aspects of cutaneous leishmaniasis during the recent epidemic in district Karak in 2018–2019. The suspected patients of leishmaniasis from different areas of district Karak were examined. We came across 803 cases during six-month period from August 2018 to January 2019. A major portion ([ 37%; n = 299) of these patients were in age 11–20 years. The infection rate was higher in female (55.3%; n = 803) compared to males (44.6%; n = 803). Both gender and age showed a significant effect on the occurrence of infection. It is concluded that cutaneous leishmaniasis has appeared as a major health issue in district Karak. The current study report CL outbreak in Karak district which need immediate response from the healthcare authorities. In addition, extensive awareness campaigns are needed for timely prevention of such outbreaks.
& Muhammad Ali [email protected]; [email protected] 1
Department of Biotechnology, Quaid-I-Azam University Islamabad, Islamabad, Pakistan
2
Department of Medicine, DHQ Hospital Kohat, Kohat, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
3
Department of Health, DC Office, Karak, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
4
Department of Biotechnology, Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan, Mardan, Pakistan
Keywords Leishmania Cutaneous leishmaniasis Endemic
Introduction The cutaneous form of leishmaniasis is documented as the ninth most widespread infectious skin disease present globally and is caused by flagellated protozoans of the Leishmania genus (Alvar et al. 2012). In humans, such parasites are extensive in endemic locations along with suitable sand-fly vectors and mostly found in immune suppressed individuals (Chaudhary et al. 2008; Kimutai et al. 2017). Among Leishmania species, approximately 20 species are well-known with the potential of causing infections in humans. Three types of clinical infections are caused by these species which are visceral leishmaniasis (VL), mucocutaneous leishmaniasis (ML) and cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) (Clem 2010). Most of the researcher have reported that female sand-flies of the genus Phlebotomus transmit promastigotes of Leishmania to humans (Clem 2010; Ve´lez et al. 2009). The sand fly takes blood from host skin as their food meal and then saliva containing promastigotes is injected into host (Ve´lez et al. 2009). Upon phagocytosis by host cell, the promastigotes are developed into amastigotes. According to World Health Organization
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