Leishmania (Leishmania) tropica (Wright, 1903)

Rioux, Jean-Antoine, Gramiccia, Marina, Léger, Nicole, Desjeux, Philippe & Depaquit, Jérôme, 2020, Leishmaniasis and phlebotomine sand flies in Oman Sultanate, Parasite (Paris, France) 27 (68), pp. 1-13 : 10

Leishmania (Leishmania) tropica (Wright, 1903)

The finding and isolation of L. tropica in Oman is not surprising. This parasite suspected of being responsible for CL [ 64], was recently isolated in Muscat from a Pakistani resident [ 65]. Moreover, several countries in the Middle East ( Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Iran, Pakistan) and East Africa ( Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan) are known foci of L. tropica CL [ 8, 13, 53]. In neighbouring Yemen, there is an increasing trend of L. tropica CL [ 31 – 33]. Our results show the strain we isolated in the present study is related to Middle Eastern strains confirming the high polymorphism of L. tropica species and the description of a new variant zymodeme ROM 102 ( ZMON 39 cluster).

The L. tropica isolation in a young girl who had never left the Dhofar region (case LCO 4, strain IBM-105) suggests the hypothetic vectorial role of Ph. saevus , the only Paraphlebotomus well represented on the site with 56 specimens caught ( Tables 2 and 3), and the only member of the genus Phlebotomus , except one male of Ph. bergeroti .