Clinical, epidemiological and transmission cycle aspects of leishmaniasis urbanization in Barreiras, Bahia, Brazil

Leishmaniasis remains one of the world's leading infectious diseases and a public health problem for Bahia and Brazil. We made a retrospective cohort study of leishmaniasis cases reported between 2007 and 2016 in the Barreiras city, an important agribusiness city whose urbanization process was recent. Leishmaniasis presented epidemiological data with similar characteristics of the disease in other regions of the Brazil, that is, with the highest prevalence of visceral leishmaniasis found in children, while cutaneous leishmaniais was found in adults. The disease presented an urban configuration with wide distribution in the Barreiras city. We found the vectors of the different clinical forms of the disease occurring in the urban area of Barreiras city, particularly the sand fly of the Lutzmyia longipalpis, Evandromyia sallesi and Nyssomyia intermedia species. More studies will be necessary to indentify whether these species are really incriminated in the urban transmission of the parasites in the urban areas. This study indicates the places of the spatio-temporal greatest occurrence and transmission of the disease in the urban zones of Barreiras city. (c) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study conducted a retrospective cohort study of leishmaniasis cases reported in Barreiras city between 2007 and 2016, finding that the disease in the city had similar epidemiological characteristics to other regions of Brazil. Visceral leishmaniasis was most prevalent in children, while cutaneous leishmaniasis was primarily found in adults. The disease showed an urban configuration and had a wide distribution in Barreiras city, with vectors of different clinical forms occurring in the urban area.