Cutaneous leishmaniasis is caused by a protozoan parasite-Leishmania tropica in dogs and human being both and commonly known as oriental sore. This disease is a type of metazoonosis and is of great zoonotic importance. It is transmitted by sand fly (Phlebotomus spp.) between dogs and men. The disease is characterized by non healing cutaneous/mucocutaneous ulcers or nodular ulcerative lesions over the body. Presently, this disease is studied in 10 pet dogs and 73 human beings. Oriental sore was confirmed by the presence of Leishmania tropica bodies in Leishman's stained contact smears from the lesions. In case of human beings, the disease was also confirmed by cultural examination of intralesional blood in the Tobie medium (Tobie et al., 1950) for the presence of L. tropica promastigotes. Five dogs and 45 human beings were treated with berberine sulphate (2%) and 5 dogs and 28 human beings were treated with sodium antimony gluconate (10%). Both medicines were injected intralesionally @ 0.5 ml/sq. cm of skin lesion at weekly interval till recovery. In the present study, out of 10 dogs, 6 were male and 4 were female and ulcerative lesions were found on the face, snout, fore limbs and hind limbs sized from 9 to 20 mm in diameter. In human beings, male female ratio was 2.2 : 1 while in dogs, it was 1.5 : 1. In human beings almost all lesions found on exposed parts of the body and they were sized from 20 to 35 mm. In dogs, both the medicines were found equally effective except number of weekly treatments. In human beings, intralesional injections of berberine sulphate and sodium antimony gluconate were found to be 97.77% to 92.85% effective, respectively.

References

1.  Tobie et al. (1950). J. Parasit. 36: 48-54.