Leishmania infantum is the causative agent of infantile visceral leishmaniasis

Visceral leishmaniasis

Visceral leishmaniasis , also known as kala-azar, black fever, and Dumdum fever, is the most severe form of leishmaniasis. Leishmaniasis is a disease caused by protozoan parasites of the Leishmania genus. This disease is the second-largest parasitic killer in the world , responsible for an...

 in the Mediterranean region of the Old World

Old World

The Old World consists of those parts of the world known to classical antiquity and the European Middle Ages. It is used in the context of, and contrast with, the "New World" ....

 and in Latin America

Latin America

Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages  – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

, where it has been called Leishmania chagasi. It is also an unusual cause of cutaneous leishmaniasis

Cutaneous leishmaniasis

Cutaneous leishmaniasis is the most common form of leishmaniasis. It is a skin infection caused by a single-celled parasite that is transmitted by sandfly bites...

. Wild canids and domestic dog

Dog

The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...

s are the natural reservoir

Natural reservoir

Natural reservoir or nidus, refers to the long-term host of the pathogen of an infectious disease. It is often the case that hosts do not get the disease carried by the pathogen or it is carried as a subclinical infection and so asymptomatic and non-lethal...

 of this organism. Leishmania infantum is closely related to Leishmania donovani

Leishmania donovani

Leishmania donovani is a species of Leishmania. It is an important cause of visceral leishmaniasis. The reference genome of L. donovani extracted in the south eastern Nepal was published in 2011...

, and some authors believe that these two species are so close as to actually be subspecies of each other, however phylogenetic analyses

Phylogenetics

In biology, phylogenetics is the study of evolutionary relatedness among groups of organisms , which is discovered through molecular sequencing data and morphological data matrices...

 can distinguish between these two groups.

External links

• Dantas-Torres F. (2008). "Canine vector-borne diseases in Brazil". Parasites & Vectors
  Parasites & Vectors
  Parasites & Vectors is a peer-reviewed open-access medical journal published by BioMed Central. The journal publishes articles on the biology of parasites, parasitic diseases, intermediate hosts, vectors and vector-borne pathogens. Parasites & Vectors was established in 2008 as a merger of Filaria...
  
  1: 25. doi:10.1186/1756-3305-1-25. figure 3 and figure 5.