Sero-Prevalence Study of Visceral Leishmaniasis Using Direct Agglutination Test (DAT) in Children Up to 12 Years Old in Delphan City, Lorestan Province: Introduce A New Focus Of VL In Iran

Two clinical forms of leishmaniasis exist in Iran: cutaneous and visceral. According to the sporadic reports of new cases of Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL) in Lorestan province, real status of VL is not clear, so this study aimed to describe the seroprevalence of VL in Delphan city. In this descriptive analytic study, blood samples were collected from children ≤ 12 years and 10% of adults by a multi-stage randomized cluster sampling from January 2012 to September 2012. The sero-prevalence evaluation was done by Direct Agglutination Test (DAT). Based on different studies in Iran, the 1/800 and 1/1600 titers were considered as the infection with L. infantum and the of titers ≥ 1/3200 accompanied with clinical symptoms was considered as VL disease. 800 collected serum samples, 21(2.62%) showed anti-Leishmania antibodies at titers of 1/800 and 1/1600, whereas 5(0.62%) showed anti-Leishmania antibodies at titers of ≥1/3200. But just one of them showed clinical symptoms (anemia and large abdominal) which is under treatment with miltefosine. A new focus of VL with low endemicity is going to be formed in our region, which showed that further studies on vector and reservoirs is necessary in the region and other parts of Lorestan province.