First Report of an Urban Case of Canine Visceral Leishmaniasis in the Municipality of Cali, Colombia

Abstract

American visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is a vector-borne disease caused by Leishmania infantum (syn. chagasi) and transmitted by Lutzomyia longipalpis and Lutzomyia evansi phlebotomine sand flies. Dogs not only are the main host reservoirs of the parasite but also suffer the disease; therefore, canine VL (CVL) has assumed an important role in public health. In Colombia, human and CVL are restricted to two transmission foci: one in the north region (Caribbean coast) and other in the central south region (middle Magdalena River Valley). We present a CVL case involving a 2-year-old male dog with a history of lack of appetite, general weakness, and progressive loss of weight. A diagnosis of CVL was obtained using the direct parasitological examination in spleen and bone marrow samples stained with Giemsa and RT-qPCR. The infecting Leishmania species was identified as L. infantum by PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism amplifying the Hsp70 gene from bone marrow and spleen samples and confirming by sequencing. The patient responded favorably to treatment with intramuscular meglumine antimoniate at a dose of 100 mg/kg daily for 8 weeks and oral allopurinol at a dose of 10 mg/kg every 12 hours until new indication. This is the first report of urban CVL in the city of Cali, Colombia, highlighting the need for surveillance and control programs in the municipalities of the department of Valle del Cauca, a region where VL has not been informed before. The findings also indicate the need to reinforce the surveillance programs in other rural and urban regions of the country where favorable eco-epidemiological conditions exist.

An Updated Geographical Distribution of Leishmania Species Involved in Human Leishmaniasis in Colombia

“…The highest percentage of patients were mainly from the department of Antioquia followed by Meta, Chocó, Caquetá, and Caldas. This abundance of cases are because our laboratory is located in Medellín, the capital city of Antioquia department and close foci patients come to our consulting room and also because in these regions we have carried out the largest number of foci studies and clinical trials of the "leishvacin" vaccine between 1998 -2008 [36] or some therapeutic alternatives such as miltefosine [37], thermotherapy [38] and Anfoleish® [39] Results showed here agree with results previously reported by other authors, in which the department of Antioquia contributes the largest number of tegumentary leishmaniasis cases in Colombia but also with the highest number of Leishmania species (all identi ed species except L. guyanensis and L. infantum). Other departments with high numbers of cases in this work were Chocó and Meta followed by Córdoba, Caquetá and Caldas.…”

Ecoepidemiología de la leishmaniasis visceral en Colombia (1943-2019): revisión sistemática

“…evansi como de Lu. longipalpis sin que se hayan notificado casos de LV ni humana ni canina; y el departamento del Valle del Cauca donde recientemente se notificó un caso de LV canina (LVC) 60 sin que se haya reportado la presencia de ninguna de las especies vectores (Fig. 3A).…”

“…48 En 2020 se reporta un caso de LVC en el departamento del Valle del Cauca. 60 Figura 4. Distribución de casos de leishmaniasis visceral en Colombia.…”

“…Más recientemente se empiezan a registrar casos humanos en Norte de Santander, Cartagena, Cesar y Guajira, así como también, casos de LVC en el departamento del Valle del Cauca. 60…”

An Urban Case of Canine Visceral Leishmaniasis in the Municipality of Pereira, Colombia

“…American visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is a tropical and subtropical vector-borne disease caused by the protozoa species Leishmania infantum/chagasi, and transmitted by Lutzomyia longipalpis and Lu. evansi phlebotomine sandflies species (Dantas-Torres et al, 2019;Arbelaez et al, 2020). Dogs are its main animal host reservoir, especially in urban areas, and they may undergo this clinical disease with severe compromise and even fatal outcomes.…”