Epidemiology of cutaneous leishmaniasis in the cities covered by the Mashhad University of Medical Sciences during 2016-2022

Cutaneous leishmaniasis is one of the most critical common parasitic diseases between humans and animals, which has always been of interest due to its high infection rate and the creation of malformed skin lesions. This research was conducted to investigate the epidemiological characteristics of the disease in the cities covered by the Mashhad University of Medical Sciences during the years 2016-2022. In this Cross-sectional study, the background and epidemiological information of all patients diagnosed with cutaneous leishmaniasis from the beginning of April 2016 to the end of March 2022 were followed up and tre. Their report was obtained from the electronic health record system. Sina SinaEHR® was extracted from the population covered by the Mashhad University of Medical Sciences and analyzed by SPSS-26 and ArcMap software. The results showed that out of 7433 cases of cutaneous leishmaniasis in the cities covered by the Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, 3767 (50.7%) were men and 3666 (49.3%) were women (P=0.11(. The average incidence of the disease was 24.8 per 100 thousand people. The highest incidence rate of the disease is related to Binalud City, with an average incidence of 208.6 per 100,000 people. The lowest associated rate is linked to Bakharz City, with an average incidence rate of 2.3 per  100,000 people. The highest frequency was in the age group of 10-19 years (19.8%), and the lowest frequency was 50-59 years (10.3%). 50% of the lesions were on the hands (P<0.001(. Most cases of the disease occurred in the fall. 64.9% of patients did not mention a history of traveling to the endemic areas of the disease. 72.2% of the people with the disease were urban type (P<0.001). Due to the high prevalence of urban-type leishmaniasis, justification of the health forces regarding active disease detection in high-risk areas, complete treatment of infected people, and education to patients and their relatives about covering the wound and collecting stray dogs are basic measures.