<i>Leishmania donovani</i> Infection with Atypical Cutaneous Manifestations, Himachal Pradesh, India, 2014–2018
Lovlesh Thakur, Kiran Kumari Singh, Hemant R. Kushwaha, Sudarshan Sharma, Vinay Shankar, Ajeet Kumar Negi, Ghanshyam Verma, Sandhya Kumari, Aklank Jain, Manju Jain
Abstract
L eishmaniasis is a complex disease with cutane- ous, mucocutaneous, or visceral manifestations depending on the parasite species and host immunity. Despite continued elimination efforts, leishmaniasis continues to afflict known and newer endemic regions, where 0.5-0.9 million new cases of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) and 0.6-1.0 million new cases of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) occur every year (1). An increase in VL and CL cases from newer foci and atypical disease manifestation pose a challenge to leishmaniasis control programs (2-7). Unlike the known species-specific disease phenotype, parasite variants can cause atypical disease, so that Leishmania species generally associated with VL can cause CL and vice versa.