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Prevalence of asymptomatic Leishmania infection and associated risk factors, after an outbreak in the south-western Madrid region, Spain, 2015
- Ana Victoria Ibarra-Meneses1 , Eugenia Carrillo1 , Javier Nieto1 , Carmen Sánchez1 , Sheila Ortega1 , Alicia Estirado2 , Pello Latasa Zamalloa2 , Juan Carlos Sanz3 , Luis García-Comas2 , María Ordobás2 , Javier Moreno1
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View Affiliations Hide AffiliationsAffiliations: 1 WHO Collaborating Centre for Leishmaniasis, National Center for Microbiology, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Majadahonda, Madrid, Spain 2 Department of Epidemiology, Consejería de Sanidad de la Comunidad de Madrid, Madrid, Spain 3 Regional Public Health Laboratory, Health Department of the Community of Madrid, Madrid, SpainEugenia Carrilloecarrillo isciii.es
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Citation style for this article: Ibarra-Meneses Ana Victoria, Carrillo Eugenia, Nieto Javier, Sánchez Carmen, Ortega Sheila, Estirado Alicia, Latasa Zamalloa Pello , Sanz Juan Carlos, García-Comas Luis, Ordobás María, Moreno Javier. Prevalence of asymptomatic Leishmania infection and associated risk factors, after an outbreak in the south-western Madrid region, Spain, 2015. Euro Surveill. 2019;24(22):pii=1800379. https://doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2019.24.22.1800379 Received: 06 Jul 2018; Accepted: 10 Feb 2019
Abstract
A large outbreak of leishmaniasis with 758 cutaneous and visceral leishmaniasis cases occurred in 2009 in Fuenlabrada, in the south-west of the Madrid region of Spain.
We aimed to determine the prevalence of asymptomatic Leishmania infection after this outbreak, and its associated risk factors.
A cross-sectional study of 804 healthy individuals living in Fuenlabrada who had no history of leishmaniasis, was conducted between January and July 2015. Asymptomatic infections were sought by either a combination of PCR, immunofluorescent antibody titre, and direct agglutination tests, or by whole blood stimulation assay (WBA) with interleukin-2 (IL-2) quantification.
Using the first approach, prevalence of asymptomatic individuals was 1.1% (9/804), while the second returned a value of 20.7% (143/804). Older age, being male, proximity to the park where the focus of infection was identified, and living in a detached house, were all strongly associated with the prevalence of asymptomatic infection.
The true number of infected individuals may be underestimated if only serological methods are used. The combination of WBA with IL-2 quantification may allow to better determine the prevalence of asymptomatic Leishmania infection, which would be useful in establishing control measures and in quantifying their impact. In our study, the use of WBA with IL-2 quantification also helped establish the risk factors that influence exposure to and infection by Leishmania.

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