ABSTRACT
Objective: Ilam is a border province and a high risk zone for zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis [ZCL]. Identification of Leishmania parasite species in clinical infections is a prerequisite for planning appropriate control measures. This study investigates the demographic characteristics of patients and molecular epidemiology of Leishmania parasites in the skin lesions of patients from Ilam Province
Methods: A total of 106 cases of suspected cutaneous leishmaniasis were detected passively and microscopic slides prepared from their active skin lesions. We randomly selected 50 slides. A fragment of the rDNA-ITS1 gene was amplified after which the PCR products digested with HaeIII restriction enzyme. There were 18 samples sequenced and their phylogenetic relationships compared with sequences retrieved from GenBank
Results: Leishmania amastigotes were detected in 100 slides. The highest and lowest distribution of cases was from the Moosian and Dehloran districts, respectively. There were 68.9% males and 31.1% of cases were women. The RFLP pattern of all samples was similar to Leishmania major. Phylogenetic relationships displayed great similarity between our sequences and those of Leishmania major parasites from sandflies trapped in Ilam and South Khorasan Provinces and human hosts from Esfarayen, Mahshahr and Afghanistan plus Leishmania mexicana of Venezuelan origin classified together in the same clade
Conclusion: Due to homogeneous morphology, problems associated with the cultivation of Leishmania and the two-step molecular identification process, the rDNA-ITS1-RFLP method has gained considerable attention in recent years. This method could be used as a very sensitive, simple, rapid and inexpensive method to detect Leishmania parasites in a variety of clinical and non-clinical samples
ABSTRACT
The hepatitis B is a viral infection that causes a big problem globally. About 2 billion people worldwide are infected and there are now about 400 million HBV-DNA carriers around the world. HBV infection is the ninth cause of death worldwide and infects about 350 million new cases each year in the world. HBV-DNA can be spotted in different body secretions and fluids, including serum, saliva, tears, urine, amniotic fluid index, and cerumen isolated. This is a case - control study on the population of 140 participants [70 patients with chronic hepatitis B as cases and 70 healthy volunteers community as a control]. The presence of HBV-DNA in their serum and ears cerumen using qualitative PCR and quantitative molecular detection Real-Time PCR [BioRad-CFX system] was determined. Copy of serum HBV were detected in 98.5% of case group and 7% of healthy population [control group]. In case group, 61 patients [87.2%] had HBV-DNA in their cerumens and 5control subjects [about 7%] were positive for HBV-DNA in their cerumens. All patients group and two subject [2.8%] of control group, were positive in HBsAg test. Average HB virus genome load in cerumen and serum of chronic HBV patients [group] were 8.98x10[6] and 3.60x10[8] copies per ml of the sample respectively. Like other body secretions, Ear cerumen is constantly produced and is subject to a pathogen such as HBV infection. The possiblity of disease transmission seems unlikely through Cerumen, however considering the average copy of HBV genome in the cerumen, no doubt, it can be claimed that there is a potential transmission risk of HBV infection