Seroepidemiological investigation of visceral leishmaniasis in dogs of Ahvaz district, Iran.

Visceral leishmaniasis is a parasit ic infectious disease from dogs and canids to human that is caused by protozoans of the genus leishmania. information on the prevalence of canine leishmaniasis is necessary todefine control measures for zoonotic leishmaniasis. this seroepidemiological survey was performed in dogs from ahvaz district using by dat and elisa. blood was randomly collected in 38 pure or mixed breed dogs (urban dogs) presented to veterinary hospital of shahid chamran university and 172 mongrel dogs of 10 villages around ahvaz city (rural dogs). a high level of concordance (98%) was found between the titers measured by dat and elisa then dat selected as valid and simple test. the detected seroprevalences based on dat were 2.6% and 16.3% in urban and rural dogs respectively. no statisticallysignificant differences were observed between male and female seroprevalences in each groups and among various villages (p>0.05). regarding age-groups of rural dogs, the lowest of seroprevalence (5.3%) was found in dogs younger than one year of age and the highest (33 .3%) in dogs older than seven years. only between of these two groups was statistically significant difference (p<0.05). this study revealed the importance of the dog as a reservoir for visceral leishmaniasis in ahvaz district. it seems that seroprevalence of disease in rural dogs from ahvaz district is similar to endemic area as of mediterranean countries.