Laboratory based diagnosis of leishmaniasis in rodents as the reservoir hosts in southern Iran, 2012

Objective: To examine the fauna of rodents as zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis reservoir hosts in Zarqan County, Fars Province, south of Iran, during 2012. Methods: During 2012, wild rodents from different parts of this region were caught by Sherman traps and checked by the examination of liver and spleen smears, for Leishmania infection, to see which species were acting as reservoir hosts; the slides were then processed to extract DNA for molecular test using PCR assay. Results: From 108 rodent species caught, 63% were male and 37% identified as female. Meriones libycus was the most abundant species caught (80.5%) and 5.7% of them were found to be smear-positive for Leishmania amastigotes. The other species were Rattus rattus (14.8%) and Mus musculus (4.7%), but none of them were found positive. Leishmania infection was observed in male and female samples microscopically. Moreover, molecular results revealed Leishmania major in three male and two female specimens. Conclusions: Based on our knowledge, Meriones libycus is incriminated as the main reservoir hosts of Leishmania major in the rural area of Zarqan.