Ten years clinical and epidemiological picture of cutaneous Leishmaniasis in the Dasht-e-Azadegan County, Southwestern Iran

Objectives: To identify the epidemiological and clinical aspects of cutaneous Leishmaniasis (CL) in cases reported from an endemic focus, Dasht-e-Azadegan county, between 2005 and 2014. Design: Descriptive-analytical study Setting: School of Health, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran Subjects: Patients who were definitely infected with leishmaniasis (N=1749) Intervention: All patients were diagnosed with positive direct smear for CL among the individuals living in the above county of the Khuzestan Province, southwestern Iran. Doubtful active ulcers of all patients were scraped, smeared on the slides, stained and examined microscopically for the presence of Leishmania amastigotes. Information was collected by means of a checklist, including clinical and sociodemographic data. SPSS software was used for descriptive statistics. Main outcome measure: Demographic and epidemiological parameters: patient's age, gender, place of residence (city, village), season, month, location of ulcers on the body and number of body lesions. Results: Overall, 1749 patients were referred to the county health center for treatment. In the present study, 961 (55) of the cases lived in urban areas and 52.6 of the patients were males. The maximum lesions were in the hands (34.5); 48.2 of the cases had just one wound and most of the patients were in the age group of 11-30 years (45). Our findings showed that the most incidence of CL occurred in winter (51.6). Conclusion: A majority of patients in the age group 11-30 years showed that the active population is at risk of CL and educating this age group is important for the control of this disease. Due to the findings of this study, CL seemed to be of the wet form in Dasht-e-Azadegan