A Demographic and Epidemiological Investigation of Patients Afflicted with Cutaneous Leishmaniasis in The Diyala Government Region of Iraq

Abstract

Leishmaniasis considers one of the public health issues over the world. The risk of infection increases when expose to the blood-sucking sandflies that facilitate the parasite transmission between mammalian hosts, including humans in a few cases, that carry the metacyclic promastigotes during the infection. The present study aimed to investigate the demographical and epidemiological characteristics of 75 patients infected with cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) compared to a healthy control group. The current findings referred that the employment patients have a non-significantly higher percentage compared to non-employment patients, the females have a non-significantly higher percentage. While in the not-employed patients, the males have a non-significant higher percentage. Additionally in urban, the proportion of CL was not significantly higher in males. While in rural, the results were different. Also, the percentage of CL was significantly higher in Khan Bani Saad position in Diyala province compared with other positions, the percentage of infected females was significantly higher than males at this position. The present findings referred that the job type, living style and position have a main role in the prevalence rate of the disease in rural and urban cities and gender has no role in the etiology of the disease.