Clinical, epidemiological and transmission cycle aspects of leishmaniasis urbanization in Barreiras, Bahia, Brazil

Spat Spatiotemporal Epidemiol. 2021 Feb:36:100395. doi: 10.1016/j.sste.2020.100395. Epub 2020 Dec 11.

Abstract

Leishmaniasis remains one of the world's leading infectious diseases and a public health problem for Bahia and Brazil. We made a retrospective cohort study of leishmaniasis cases reported between 2007 and 2016 in the Barreiras city, an important agribusiness city whose urbanization process was recent. Leishmaniasis presented epidemiological data with similar characteristics of the disease in other regions of the Brazil, that is, with the highest prevalence of visceral leishmaniasis found in children, while cutaneous leishmaniais was found in adults. The disease presented an urban configuration with wide distribution in the Barreiras city. We found the vectors of the different clinical forms of the disease occurring in the urban area of Barreiras city, particularly the sand fly of the Lutzmyia longipalpis, Evandromyia sallesi and Nyssomyia intermedia species. More studies will be necessary to indentify whether these species are really incriminated in the urban transmission of the parasites in the urban areas. This study indicates the places of the spatio-temporal greatest occurrence and transmission of the disease in the urban zones of Barreiras city.

Keywords: American cutaneous leishmaniasis; Barreiras; Sand fly; Urbanization; Visceral leishmaniasis.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Brazil / epidemiology
  • Humans
  • Leishmaniasis* / epidemiology
  • Psychodidae* / parasitology
  • Retrospective Studies
  • Urbanization