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Figure 1. Constituents of the main branched N -linked glycosidic moiety of the FML antigen of Leishmania donovani.
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Figure 2. Constituents of the main short linear oligossacharides of the N -linked glycosidic moiety of the FML antigen of Leishmania donovani.
(Figure omitted. See article PDF.)
Figure 3. Lutzomyia longipalpis midguts experimentally infected through an in vivo membrane assay with hamster spleen amastigotes of Leishmania chagasi , blood and preimmune dog serum or dog Leishmune ® -vaccinated serum. Agglutinates of promastigotes of Leishmania are shown inside the white circles in the midgut of an insect fed with preimmune serum. Two individual promastigotes are pointed out by the black arrows. The empty midgut is shown inside the black circle of the midgut of the sand fly fed on a pool of sera of Leishmune-vaccinated dogs. Fresh preparation, phase contrast, 400× magnification.
(Figure omitted. See article PDF.)
Need for a vaccine against visceral leishmaniasis
Leishmaniasis affects 12 million people in 88countries with 350 million people at risk. Each year, 2 million new human cases are registered, 500,000 of which are visceral leishmaniasis (VL). A total of 90% of these cases occur in India, Sudan, Bangladesh and Brazil [301]. VL, the most severe human Leishmania infection, is an anthroponose in India and Central Africa and a zoonosis transmitted by domestic dogs in the Mediterranean and America. These factors justify the search for both human and dog vaccines to interrupt the epidemics. Leishmania donovani is the main agent of the disease in Africa, India and Asia, while Leishmania chagasi causes VL in America and Leishmania infantum causes VL in the Mediterranean basin, although both parasites are considered to be the same species [1]. The infection is transmitted from human to human and from dog to human through the bite of the hematophagous sand fly vectors of the Lutzomyia genus in the Americas and of the Phlebotomus genus in the Old World [2]. The epidemiological control of VL according to WHO regulations is accomplished by the treatment of human cases, insecticide treatment of habitations and culling of infected dogs. The drug resistance and toxicity of chemotherapy, the increase of infected immunocompromised subjects and the difficulties of epidemiological control based upon sacrifice of seropositive dogs emphasizes...