%0 Journal Article
%T The prevalence of canine Leishmania infantum infection in Sichuan Province, southwestern China detected by real time PCR
%A Li-min Shang
%A Wei-ping Peng
%A Hong-tao Jin
%A Ding Xu
%A Ni-na Zhong
%A Wen-long Wang
%A You-xi Wu
%A Quan Liu
%J Parasites & Vectors
%D 2011
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1756-3305-4-173
%X The overall prevalence of Leishmania DNA in dogs was 24.8% (78/314) in Sichuan Province, with the positive rate of 23.5% (23/98) in Wenchuan County, 28.2% (20/71) in Heishui County, and 24.1% (35/145) in Jiuzhaigou County, and no significant difference was observed among the three counties (P > 0.05). The dogs were further allocated to different groups based on sexes, ages and external clinical symptoms. The logistic regression analysis revealed that a higher prevalence was found in older and external symptomatic dogs, compared to that of younger and asymptomatic dogs (P < 0.05).The results revealed that L. infantum infection in dogs is widespread in Sichuan Province, southwestern China, which has a public health significance, due to its contribution to the transmission of the infection to humans by sandflies. It is necessary to take measures, including treatment or eradication of infected dogs, to control canine leishmaniasis, which could be helpful to reduce human VL in this area.Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is a severe sandfly-transmitted parasitic disease in humans caused by protozoans of the Leishmania donovani complex. The disease is endemic in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America, and there are about 500,000 new cases per year in the world [1]. VL has also become an important opportunistic infection related to HIV [2,3]. VL is still an important infectious disease in China, and can be divided into three types: natural focal visceral leishmania (NVL), anthroponotic visceral leishmaniasis (AVL) and zoonotic visceral leishmania (ZVL) [4]. NVL is distributed in Xingjiang and Inner Mongolia, where the wild animals are the sources of infection [5,6]. AVL is transmitted between humans in Shandong, Jiangsu, Hebei, Anhui Province, where patients are the main sources of infection [7]. This type of disease has not been found since 1970s, but there are some sporadic cases of cutaneous leishmaniasis in these regions. ZVL is mainly distributed in Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia,
%K Leishmania
%K Dogs
%K Prevalence
%K Real time PCR
%K China
%U http://www.parasitesandvectors.com/content/4/1/173