Abstract
Visceral leishmaniasis is among the most neglected diseases in the world and especially affects poor populations of some developing or underdeveloped countries, with human disease being a factor in the occurrence of thousands of deaths every year. Visceral leishmaniasis affect domestic dogs, main reservoirs of the Leishmania parasite in urban environments. Thus, the aim of this study was to analyze the prevalence of canine visceral leishmaniasis in two non-endemic municipalities located in southern Santa Catarina, as well as to identify the main risk factors for infection in dogs. A cross-sectional study was carried out with dogs living in two Zoonoses Control Centers located in the cities of Tubarão and Criciúma. Blood samples were collected and analyzed by real-time PCR for detection of Leishmania infection. Clinical examination and evaluation of the characteristics of the canine population were also carried out. A total of 107 dogs were evaluated, of which 19% were positive for Leishmania, and 85% of the positive cases were asymptomatic. In conclusion, we highlight the detection of cases of canine visceral leishmaniasis in two cities that had not yet reported cases. The high rate of positive asymptomatic animals suggests the maintenance of the parasite in the environment.
Highlights
Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is an infectious disease, caused by Leishmania protozoan transmitted to humans and canids through the infecting bite of female phlebotomine sandflies (Ministério da Saúde, 2009)
Concerning clinical evaluation, 83 animals showed no symptoms of canine visceral leishmaniasis (CVL) (77.6%) and 24 were considered suspects, 19 dogs presenting only dermatopathies (79.2%)
This study evaluated the prevalence of CVL in shelter dogs from two municipalities in southern Santa Catarina, using the qPCR technique to detecting the Leishmania DNA
Summary
Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is an infectious disease, caused by Leishmania protozoan transmitted to humans and canids through the infecting bite of female phlebotomine sandflies (Ministério da Saúde, 2009). In Brazil and worldwide, VL is considered one of the most important parasitic protozoan diseases for public health due to its high morbidity and mortality, as well as the large number of unreported cases (Gontijo & Melo, 2004). In Brazil this disease is caused by Leishmania infantum and its main vector is the phlebotomine Lutzomyia longipalpis (Michalsky et al, 2002). In recent years the disease has begun to expand to the North, Midwest and Southeast regions of Brazil (Werneck, 2010), with emphasis on the urbanized profile of VL recently evidenced, for example, in Minas Gerais (2020) (da Silva et al, 2020).
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