Authors

A Albuquerque²; L Cardoso³; L Campino¹; S Cortes¹;  ¹ Global Health & Tropical Medicine/IHMT/UNL, Portugal;  ² Medizinische Hochschule Hannover, Germany;  ³ University of Tras-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal

Discussion

Canine leishmaniasis is a zoonotic disease caused by Leishmania infantum and transmitted by phlebotomine sand flies. It is considered an important veterinary and public health problem in many countries, namely in the Mediterranean basin and Brazil, where dogs are considered the main reservoir hosts of the parasite. Not only diseased dogs but also those subclinically infected play a relevant role in the transmission, therefore, early diagnosis is essential. Currently a wide range of accurate and sensitive molecular tools as approaches for diagnosis are under use. The aim of this work was to compare four PCR-based protocols for the diagnosis of canine leishmaniasis in a cohort of dogs from northeastern Portugal. 229 bone marrow samples were collected from dogs in Douro region, an endemic area for leishmaniasis. Four PCR protocols were evaluated for Leishmania DNA detection in canine samples, three single (ITS1, MC, Uni21/Lmj4 PCRs) and one nested (SSUr RNA-nPCR). The higher percentage of infected dogs was detected with the SSU rRNA-nPCR (37.6%), which also was able to detect the parasite DNA in a higher number of samples from apparently healthy dogs (25.3%). The SSU rRNA-nPCR is an appropriate method to detect Leishmania infection in dogs. Accurate and early diagnosis in clinically suspect as well as apparently healthy dogs is essential, in order to treat and protect animals and public health contributing to control and awareness of the disease.