Leishmania Donovani

Leishmania Donovani

Leishmania donovani is a species from the genus Leishmania. The Leishmania causes "zoontoic infection" called leishmaniasis. Leishmaniasis is transmitted by sandflies. When in a human host, the Leishmania are intracelluar parasits that target the white blood cells. Leishmania donovani belongs to the domain of Eukaryote, and it is in the kingdom of Excavata. There are belong to the phylum of Euglenozoa. They are mostly found in about 88 countries. Most affected countries are in tropics and subtropics. These countries included India, Bangladesh, Nepel, Sudan, Brazil, Mexico, Central America, from nothern Argentina to Texas (not in Uruguay, Chile and Canada), southern Europe, Asia (not Southeast Asia), the Middle East and Africa (especially East and North Africa).
Only the female sandflies transmit leishmaniasis. The female sandflies need blood for their egg to develop, and they become infected with Leishmania parasites when they suck on the blood from an infected person or animal. Over a period of 4 and 25 days, the parasites develop into sandfly. When the infectious female sandfly took her next meal, it impregate the person or animal with the parasite, and the transmission cycle is complete.   A dangerous threat to control leishmaniasis is that it interaction with HIV infection. HIV infection increase the risk of   developing leishmaniasis by between 100 and 2320 times. Leishmaniasis can cause large scale epidemics and a high mortality rate. Malnutrition is a well known risk factor, and th epidemic flourishes under conditions of famine, complex emergencies and mass population movements. Roughly, 50,000 deaths annually.