Hailu Asrat, Di Muccio Trentina, Abebe Tamrat, Hunegnaw Mesfin, Kager Piet A, Gramiccia Marina
Faculty of Medicine, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Parasitology (DMIP), Addis Ababa University, P.O. Box 9086, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg. 2006 Jan;100(1):53-8. doi: 10.1016/j.trstmh.2005.04.017. Epub 2005 Sep 8.
Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) in the Old World is caused mainly by three species of Leishmania: L. major, L. tropica and L. aethiopica, and sporadically by L. infantum and L. donovani. In Ethiopia, zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis, caused by L. aethiopica, is a major public health problem affecting thousands of people in the highlands. By contrast, little is known about the existence and epidemiology of CL due to L. tropica. In this report, we provide the first well-documented case of CL in Ethiopia caused by L. tropica. The patient acquired the infection in Awash valley of the Ethiopian Rift Valley (northeastern Ethiopia), where Phlebotomus sergenti and P. saevus have previously been found infected by L. tropica. Using the isoenzyme electrophoresis technique, the isolate was found to belong to a variant of L. tropica zymodeme MON-71, one of the new zymodemes found in Ethiopia from P. sergenti in the same region so far. The epidemiological implications of the finding are discussed.
旧大陆的皮肤利什曼病（CL）主要由三种利什曼原虫引起：硕大利什曼原虫、热带利什曼原虫和埃塞俄比亚利什曼原虫，偶尔也由婴儿利什曼原虫和杜氏利什曼原虫引起。在埃塞俄比亚，由埃塞俄比亚利什曼原虫引起的人畜共患皮肤利什曼病是一个主要的公共卫生问题，影响着高地的数千人。相比之下，关于热带利什曼原虫引起的CL的存在情况和流行病学知之甚少。在本报告中，我们提供了埃塞俄比亚首例有充分记录的由热带利什曼原虫引起的CL病例。该患者在埃塞俄比亚裂谷（埃塞俄比亚东北部）的阿瓦什山谷感染，此前在那里发现塞氏白蛉和凶猛白蛉感染了热带利什曼原虫。使用同工酶电泳技术，该分离株被发现属于热带利什曼原虫酶带型MON-71的一个变种，这是迄今为止在埃塞俄比亚同一地区从塞氏白蛉中发现的新酶带型之一。本文讨论了这一发现的流行病学意义。
