The changing profile of cutaneous leishmaniasis in a focus of the disease in Jahrom district, southern Iran.

AbstractHuman cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is endemic in several parts of Iran, and there is an urban focus of the disease in the district of Jahrom, which forms part of the southern province of Fars. To explore the current profile of the disease in Jahrom district, samples were taken from the skin lesions of 40 cases of CL patients in the district, so that the causative parasites could be identified, to species, in a nested PCR. Although Leishmania tropica has been identified, in the past, as the cause of most of the urban CL in Fars province, the predominant species represented in the recent samples from Jahrom district was L. major (87.5%), while L. tropica was relatively rare (12.5%). More than one in every three (35%) of the cases examined was a child aged 25 such lesions.The change in the predominant parasite causing CL in Jahrom district, from the L. tro...