Therapeutics

183-187Leishmania spp. are intracellular parasitic haemoflagellates that infect macrophages of the skin and viscera to produce disease in their vertebrate hosts. Three major clinical manifestations of leishmaniasis are recognized: visceral, cutaneous and muco- cutaneous leishmaniasis. The disease usually presents as fever, weight loss and hepato-splenomegaly with biochemical abnormalities of hyper- -globulinemia and pancytopenia. It has received increasing attention in developed countries because of the growing number of cases seen in AIDS patients and the occurrence of viescerotropic L. tropica disease among Persian Gulf war participants