Morsy T A, Al-Dakhil M A, El-Bahrawy A F
Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo 11566, Egypt.
J Egypt Soc Parasitol. 1999;29(1):69-74.
Felis margarita or sand cat is a nocturnal carnivore occurs in sandy areas of desert in many African and Arabin countries. Ten sand cats were captured alive in Riyadh district. Indirect haemagglutioation reactions against leishmaniasis were detected in four of them at dilutions 1/64 (1), 1/512 (1) and 1/1024 (2). On the other hand, Leishmania amastigotes were detected in the splenic smears of four (40%), two of which had amastigotes in the liver smears as well (20%). Unfortunately, culture for typing was not done. The role of sand cats as zoonotic host of leishmaniasis was discussed.
