Clinical anemia predicts dermal parasitism and reservoir infectiousness during progressive visceral leishmaniosis.

ABSTRACT: Dogs represent the primary reservoir for Leishmania infantum human visceral leishmaniasis (VL) transmitted through phlebotomine sand flies. Public health initiatives targeting zoonotic VL commonly focus on dogs with severe clinical disease, often in renal failure, as they have previously been considered the most infectious to sand flies. However, more recent studies suggest that dogs with mild to moderate clinical disease may be more infectious than dogs with severe disease. The mechanisms of infectiousness from the skin and how this relates to transmissibility as clinical disease progresses is largely unknown. We evaluated dermal parasitism in dogs naturally infected with L. infantum across the four LeishVet clinical stages of disease. We establish the relationship between dermal parasiti

SUBMITTER: Waugh MC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11578447 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature