Leishmaniose visceral canina: um problema de saúde publica em expansão

Abstract

Leishmaniasis is a neglected disease of great importance in public health. This vector-borne disease can manifest in visceral, cutaneous, and mucocutaneous forms. Visceral leishmaniasis has gained important prominence in the context of "One Health" due to the human, veterinary and environmental interface. In this context, the detection of new areas with the occurrence of autochthonous cases of canine LV is the milestone to initiate research, surveillance, and epidemiological monitoring. The municipality of Lavras was considered a silent area and not vulnerable to canine visceral leishmaniasis. In order to confirm canine infection, the objective of the present study was to establish the occurrence of autochthonous cases of canine VL in the city of Lavras-MG with serological and molecular techniques. The quantitative polymerase chain reaction -qPCR was employed to determine the positivity and parasite load of spleen and bone marrow samples from nine naturally infected dogs, previously positive for LVC in the DPP®and EIE LVC Bio-Manguinhos®tests. The results from qPCR indicate the presence of Leishmania infantumin four out of nine bone marrow samples and five out of nine spleen samples. No significant differences in the parasite load between the two analyzed tissue samples were observed. The confirmation of L. infantuminfection in dogs in this study is the first one in the municipality of Lavras and it serves as an alert for the implementation of surveillance and control actions, in order to avoid the spread of the disease and the occurrence of human cases.