Epidemiological Study of Cutaneous Leishmaniasis in the Population Covered by Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Iran from 2011 to 2021

Abstract

Background: The World Health Organization has introduced leishmaniosis as one of the eight major tropical parasitic diseases in the world, which is reported in 98 countries, including Iran. According to available reports, 2 million people develop the disease on an annual basis. Objectives: The present descriptive-analytical study aimed to examine the patients with cutaneous leishmaniasis referring to health centers from 2011 to 2021 in order to improve prevention and treatment methods for high-risk individuals and provide appropriate health services for reducing the incidences of disease in high-risk areas. Methods: A total of 2119 patients afflicted with cutaneous leishmaniosis due to skin lesions were examined. The data were analyzed after entering the data into SPSS software, vol 26. Tables and graphs were used for displaying the qualitative variables; central indicators and dispersion were used for indicating quantitative variables, and chi-square test was used for analyzing the data. The level of P ≤ 0.05 was considered as the level of significance. Results: The mean age of 2119 patients was 28.32 ± 20.38 years. Furthermore, 65.2% of male patients and 34.8% of female ones were infected with the disease. As for the nationality of the patients, 81.8% of them were Iranians and 18.1% of them were Afghans, and 88.9% of them had a history of traveling to other areas. More than 51% of the cases occurred in the young age group, the age group of 21 to 30 years had the highest incidence (18.4%), and the incidence rate of the disease did not decrease. There was a statistically significant relationship between patients’ nationality and travel history, gender, and occupation (P = 0.0001). There was no statistically significant relationship between the incidence season and travel history (P = 0.221). Conclusions: Due to the patients’ travel to endemic areas, providing them with training on effective methods for preventing mosquito bites may have had a great impact on reducing the incidences of cutaneous leishmaniosis.