Aspectos epidemiológicos da Leishmaniose visceral canina em Campina Grande, Paraíba, Brasil

Abstract

Considering an endemic area of Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL), the northeast of Brazil, showed the majority reported cases, where the dog is the principal reservoir host. Canine Visceral leishmaniasis (CVL) is a serious and potentially fatal condition disease which sometimes no clinical signs are presented in dog’s infected by Leishmania (Leishmania) chagasi. The purpose of this study was not only to estimate the prevalence and the distribution of CVL but also verify the clinical signs in dogs with visceral leishmaniasis from Campina Grande County, Paraiba State, Brazil. A total of 500 sample of serum of dogs domiciled were collected and analyzed by ELISA test. The results showed 3% (15/500) seroreagents dogs. On the other hand 86.6% (13/15) of seropositive dogs showed no clinical signs of infection. It have not found differences statically (p>0.05) on the analysis of positive results at serological test in relation to sex and age of the positive animals. The dog positivity was observed in most of the studied areas, particularly in west side of the city. These results indicate that measures of control must be adopted in order to prevent the infection in human population in this city and future, studies must be implemented, especially in dog’s population, because the asymptomatic form of the disease