Investigación de un foco de leishmaniasis cutánea en la zona andina del departamento de Nariño

Abstract

Between 1992 and 1995, 14 cases of cutaneous leishmaniasis were detected in the municipality of Samaniego, located in the Narino department, 13 (93%) being presented amongst children aged less than 13 years of age. In al1 cases the lesions were localised on the face. In three cases it was possible to typify the strains as corresponding to L. mexicana, a result which coincided with the typification of the first patient to be found in Samaniego in 1984 and the first reported case in Colombia of diffuse anergic cutaneous leishmaniasis. Parallelly, al1 sandfly species collected in the region were identified as belonging to Lutzomyia columbiana (verrucarum group), a finding which concurred with various previous reports from the same region since 1940 (the time of the search in this zone of Narino for the bartonelosis epidemic vector) until 1984, when the INS carried out sampling as a result of the aforementioned case of diffuse leishmaniasis found by us in this municipality. Even though it was not possible to demonstrate natural infection in the 400 captive sandflies, some specimens of Lutzomyia columbiana were experimentally infected after being exposed to hamsters inoculated with an L. mexicana strain isolated from a patient included in this study. Because of this finding and from epidemiological evidence, Lutzomyia columbiana was incriminated as being the possible transmittor of L. mexicana, a vector which to date had not been involved in the transmission of leishmaniasis. All patients studied responded to conventional treatment with Glucantime®.