Leishmaniasis in the Eastern Mediterranean Region

Leishmaniasis is recognized as an important public health problem in some Member States of the Eastern Mediterranean Region owing to its considerable impact on morbidity and its potential to spread in epidemics, which impose a heavy burden on national health services. The increased incidence of leishmaniasis in countries of the Region is due to several reasons including influx of nonimmune population into natural foci of transmission, changes in ecology of vectors and reservoir host, reduction in the use of residual insecticides for the control of malaria and improvements in diagnosis and reporting of positive cases