PCR Diagnosis of Leishmaniasis in Israel and the West Bank - Development of a Field Applicable Procedure Useful for Epidemiological Studies

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This work has been done within a trilateral German-Israeli-Palestinian Research project sponsored by the Deutsche Forschungs-gemeinschaft DFG. Leishmaniasis is a vector borne disease caused by a unicellular parasite, prevalent in the tropics and subtropics. There are serious and less serious disease forms ranging from life threatening visceral leishmaniasis to self limited cutaneous leishmaniasis. In Israel and the West Bank newly emerging foci were reported, and there was great need to better understand the epidemiology of the disease and the causative species involved. The project involved interdisciplinary cooperation between immunologists, entomologists, veterinarians, and medical doctors. The presented work is a contribution to the project with focus on diagnostic methods. In order to understand the epidemiology of the disease in the region it was essential to be able to identify the species of Leishmania, as well as to ensure diagnosis at a highly sensitive level. Diagnostic methods were employed in patients as well as in different animals species as canids and rodents involved in the transmission cycle of Leishmaniasis.