Seroepidemiology of visceral leishmaniasis in stray dogs in Yazd city by ELISA method

Visceral leishmaniosis (Kala-azar) is the fatal form of leishmaniosis which is sporadic in many parts and endemic in some parts of Iran. Regarding to the dogs are the most important reservoir for human visceral leishmaniosis the present study was conducted to evaluate the prevalence rate of canine leishmaniosis in stray dogs in Yazd city and its public health hazard. Blood samples were randomly collected from 100 stray dogs from municipality animal shelter in Yazd city after complete clinical examination. All collected sera were tested by a commercial indirect ELISA kit (ID-VET, France) for the presence of anti leishmania infantum antibodies. Bassed to the results, seroprevalence was 1%, which emphasized that Yazd city is a non-endemic area. On the spite of the low prevalence of disease in stray dogs in Yazd city, reports of infantile infection from Shahid Sadooghi hospital and presence of different species of sand flies in Yazd showed that there is a need for the implementation of a fieldwork monitoring system for the disease surveillance in animal reservoirs, vectors and high risk population in different geographical parts of Yazd province.