A Sero-Epidemiological Study on Visceral Leishmaniasis among Volunteer Children and Adults in Rural Areas of Shahroud, Iran 2018 #x2013;2019

Background: Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) also known as Kala-azar is considered as one of the zoonotic infections in Mediterranean countries. The disease reservoir and vectors are dogs and sandflies respectively. Due to reported sporadic cases of Kala-azar in the past five years in Shahroud County, Semnan Province, Iran, this study aimed to investigate the status of this infection in this area and to determine its seroepidemiology to take required measurements for infection control and treatment. Methods: This study was conducted on 504 subjects residing in seven villages in Shahroud County. Blood samples were randomly selected using the cluster sampling method and were collected from subjects aged up to 13 years old (90%) and adults over 13 years old (10%) from September to May 2019. After separating sera from whole blood, sam ples were subjected to direct agglutination test (DAT) to detect anti-Leishmania infantum antibodies. A range of 1:10 to 1:800 dilutions were prepared from the samples. Results: Results of 1:800 titration indicated that no sample was positive for antibodies against L. infantum. After the secondary screening, 10 cases (1.98%) showed the antibody titer of 1:100, while four cases (0.79%) showed the anti body titer of 1:400. Of 14 cases with the L. infantum antibodies, all were detected from the children 13 years old. Ac cording to clinical findings, no patient was suffering from fever, weight loss, splenomegaly, hepatomegaly, and cachex ia and therefore did not show the Kala-azar symptoms. Conclusion: The results of the current study indicate that Kala-azar is not prevalent in Shahroud County.