Search results for " Leishmaniasis"
showing 10 items of 85 documents
EPIDEMIOLOGICAL SURVEILLANCE OF VISCERAL LEISHMANIASIS IN SICILY, ITALY
1997
Abstract Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is endemic in Sicily. Although it is a notifiable disease, there is evidence that the actual number of cases is higher than that reported. In 1987, a regional reference center for active surveillance of VL was established and it recorded a total of 284 cases through 1995, a mean of 31.5 cases/year and about four-fold more than previously reported. Of the 284 cases, 150 (53%) were children (≤ 14 years of age), and of the 134 adults, 39 (29%) were coinfected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The commonest viscerotropic zymodeme of Leishmania infantum, MON 1, was identified in 40 (93%) of 43 HIV-negative and eight (57%) of 14 HIV-positive patients. A…
Vascular patterns in cutaneous leishmaniasis: A videodermatoscopic study
2015
Clinical features and epidemiology of cutaneous leishmaniasis and Leishmania major/HIV co-infection in Cameroon: results of a large cross-sectional s…
2011
Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is endemic in Central Africa, including Cameroon. However, data on its prevalence and co-infection with HIV are scarce. Here we present the results of a large cross-sectional study reporting the prevalence, clinical features and species identification of CL and HIV co-infection in northern Cameroon. A total of 32 466 subjects were clinically screened for CL during a door-to-door survey, followed by parasitological diagnosis in the field laboratory. Amongst the subjects surveyed, 146 (0.4%) were diagnosed with active CL. Seven (4.8%) of these 146 CL patients tested positive for HIV-1 and/or HIV-2. The number of lesions per CL patient ranged from 1 to 20. Three of…
Significance of persistence of antibodies against Leishmania infantum in Sicilian patients affected by acute visceral leishmaniasis.
2012
The background of this article is as follows: Few data are available about the persistence of serum-specific IgG antibodies to L. infantum after acute VL. The objective of this article is to evaluate the persistence of antibodies against L. infantum in patients healed from acute VL, and the kinetic of the same antibodies observed in 2 cases of VL relapse and 2 cases of resistance to therapy. The methods which we used to obtain our objective are the following: 55 apparently immunocompetent, HIV-negative patients were examined for antibodies to L. infantum by IFAT over 14 years period, and we got the following results: Serum-specific IgG antibodies titers decrease slowly, but constantly. In t…
Five-year retrospective italian multicenter study of visceral leishmaniasis treatment.
2014
ABSTRACT The treatment of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is poorly standardized in Italy in spite of the existing evidence. All consecutive patients with VL admitted at 15 Italian centers as inpatients or outpatients between January 2004 and December 2008 were retrospectively considered; outcome data at 1 year after treatment were obtained for all but 1 patient. Demographic characteristics, underlying diseases, diagnostic procedures, treatment regimens and outcomes, as well as side effects were recorded. A confirmed diagnosis of VL was reported for 166 patients: 120 (72.3%) immunocompetent, 21 (12.6%) patients with immune deficiencies other than HIV infection, and 25 (15.1%) coinfected with HI…
Focused ultrasound to diagnose HIV-associated tuberculosis (FASH) in the extremely resource-limited setting of South Sudan: a cross-sectional study
2019
ObjectiveOur cross-sectional study aimed at evaluating the diagnostic performance of Focused Assessment with Sonography for HIV-associated tuberculosis (FASH) to detect extrapulmonary tuberculosis in extremely resource-limited settings, with visceral leishmaniasis as a differential diagnosis with overlapping sonographic feature.DesignCross-sectional study.SettingVoluntary Counselling and Testing Centre (VCT) of Yirol Hospital, South Sudan.ParticipantsFrom May to November 2017, 252 HIV-positive patients out of 624 newly admitted to VCT Centre were registered for antiretroviral treatment. According to the number of trained doctors available to practise ultrasound (US) scan, a sample of 100 pa…
IL-15 in human visceral leishmaniasis caused byLeishmania infantum
2002
SummaryInterleukin (IL)-15 is a recently discovered cytokine with the ability to stimulate the proliferation activity of Th1 and/or Th2 lymphocytes. Here, we investigated the involvement of IL-15 in the immune response to Leishmania infantum infection by studying patients with visceral leishmaniasis (VL). We found that IL-15 is produced by leishmanial antigen (LAg)-stimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from active VL patients at a significantly higher level than those produced by cells from healed VL subjects or healthy controls. A significant increase in IL-15 serum blood levels was also observed in acute VL patients compared with healed ones. Furthermore, recombinant IL-15 …
Screening sierologico per Leishmania infantum su donatori di sangue e HIV+ asintomatici residenti in area endemica [Serological screening for Leishma…
2008
Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is endemic in Sicily (48 new cases in 2004, of which nine were in Agrigento). In southern Europe between 25-70 per cent of adult VL cases are related to HIV infection. The HIV cases have a high risk (1.5-9%) of developing VL either as a new infection or as the revival of a latent infection. We therefore carried out serologic screening to detect antibodies against L. infantum by IFAT in 1449 blood donors in Agrigento and the surrounding area (May-December 2005) and in 120 HIV+ in western Sicily, all of whom were asymptomatic and had no history of VL. L. DNA was assessed by nested PCR in blood samples of some seropositive donors. Of the 1449 blood donors, 11 (0.75%…
Serological screening for Leishmania infantum in asymptomatic blood donors living in an endemic area (Sicily, Italy)
2005
The purpose of our study was to assess whether Leishmania infantum parasitemia occurs in asymptomatic Leishmania-seropositive subjects. Samples from 500 blood donors were tested using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Anti-Leishmania antibodies were not found in any sample. Our findings suggest that the risk of L. infantum transmission by blood transfusion in Sicily is very low.