Active clinical trials for "Leishmaniasis, Visceral"

The study is designed to determine the use of delivering point of care, rapid diagnosis with rK39 and treatment with AmBisome single dose of 10 mg/kg when administrated in the Primary Health Center (PHC) settings with regard to operational feasibility, safety and final cure rate at 6 months after end of treatment. Point of care diagnosis and treatment (PCDT) at the PHC level would bring the best available interventions closer to the patients with visceral leishmaniasis (VL) whose villages are within several kilometers of the PHC. This would support the VL elimination program in the Indian subcontinent.

This is an open label, randomized non comparative phase II clinical trial conducted on parallel groups, to assess the safety and efficacy of the combination of Paromomycin (20 mg/kg/d) IM for 14 days and Miltefosine (allometric dosing) oral for 42 days, and a combination of AmBisome® (20 mg/kg total dose) IV over 7 days and Miltefosine oral for 28 days (allometric dosing) for the treatment of PKDL patients in Sudan.

In this cohort study, the investigators will study the asymptomatic period preceding the onset of active Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL) in HIV-infected individuals from VL endemic regions in Ethiopia as an avenue to develop an evidence-based screen and treat strategy to prevent progression to active VL.

To collect pilot data on the prevalence and incidence of asymptomatic Leishmania donovani infection in HIV infected individuals in a visceral leishmaniasis (VL)-HIV endemic region to inform the feasibility of a larger study exploring a screen and treat strategy for VL in HIV co-infected individuals in East-Africa (Ethiopia).

According to recent estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO) on eastern Africa, not all visceral leishmaniasis (VL) cases reported are confirmed by a laboratory test, probably due to limited access to accurate diagnostic tests and poor reporting. The main approach for VL diagnosis involves antibody detection using the rK39 rapid diagnostic test (RDT) and alternatively the direct agglutination test (DAT) to confirm clinically suspected cases. Suspected cases with negative rK39 RDT and/or DAT results are referred to facilities where examination of tissue aspirate (spleen, bone marrow, lymph node) by microscopy is available. Unfortunately, the diagnostic performance of rK39 in eastern Africa is suboptimal, particularly in settings with a high VL/HIV co-infection rate. A recently developed RDT, based on the recombinant antigen rK28, may overcome this problem, with studies reporting better performance than the rK39. However, data are not definitive, as studies comparing rK28 RDTs with rK39 RDT are limited. Another recently developed RDT detects immunoglobulin G1 (IgG1) specific to Leishmania and has shown promising results in the Indian subcontinent. This study aims to undertake a multi-country assessment of the performance of rK28 and IgG1 RDTs, as compared to the currently used rK39 RDT.

The project Visceral Leishmaniasis and Malnutrition is a cohort study that aimed to assess the association between malnutrition and visceral leishmaniasis (VL). It was conducted in Libo Kemkem and Fogera districts of the Amhara Regional State in Ethiopia. Clinical, anthropometric, biochemical, immunological, parasitological and sociodemographic data of school age children from VL high prevalence communities were collected in December 2009, May 2010 and February 2011.

Visceral leishmaniasis is a potentially fatal disease caused in South America by the protozoan Leishmania chagasi. In neighborhoods with high exposure rates, the outcome of human infection with L. chagasi ranges from asymptomatic to a disseminated wasting disease called visceral leishmaniasis (VL). Several studies document familial clustering of VL in populations at risk. Segregation analyses favor a genetic over an environmental model for susceptibility to L. chagasi infection. A peri-urban outbreak of VL near the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN) in Natal, northeast Brazil, has allowed us to identify endemic neighborhoods with ongoing transmission of L. chagasi infection. Natal is ideal for this study because endemic neighborhoods are easily accessible, people are motivated to cooperate with measures to control VL, and other forms of leishmaniasis are not transmitted in the region. Dr. Jeronimo of the UFRN, and Dr. Mary Wilson at University of Iowa have collected clinical data and DNA from 400 VL families living in these endemic neighborhoods. We have created an unprecedented cohort through which we can identify four distinct phenotypic responses after L. chagasi exposure. We documented familial clustering of L. chagasi infection, and results of both correlation and segregation analyses are consistent with the hypothesis that genetic factors predispose, in part, to the diverse clinical outcomes after infection. Polymorphism in the TNF locus is associated with developing symptomatic as opposed to asymptomatic disease after infection. We recently completed a genome-wide scan of the quantitative immune response (DTH) and identified potential linkage regions on chromosomes 2, 13, 15 and 19. We have also identified a small linkage peak on chromosome 9 for VL. In our ongoing study, we will next perform fine mapping of these regions using dense SNPs to identify genes that may determine susceptibility to L. chagasi infection. Additionally, we will also analyze candidate genes for association/linkage with susceptibility to or protection from L. chagasi disease. We recently identified an association on chromosome 5 with the DTH immune response among two linkage disequilibrium blocks spanning multiple immune related genes.

Mechanisms of host immune response to intracellular protozoa will be investigated in patients with naturally acquired infection employing a variety of in-vitro techniques. Both non-specific and antigen-specific humoral and cellular immune responses will be assessed. Parasites will be isolated from patients, cultivated in-vitro, and characterized. Responses to chemotherapy will be assessed parasitologically, immunologically and clinically.

This study is designed to evaluate the immune and therapeutic responses of visceral leishmaniasis patients using N-acetylcysteine (NAC) as an adjuvant therapy to pentavalent antimony.

This study will evaluate the of the loop-mediated amplification assay (LAMP) as a diagnostic as well as a Test-of-Cure (ToC) for visceral leishmaniasis (VL) in an endemic area in Ethiopia. Furthermore, we aim to further development of the direct-blood PCR-Nucleic Acid Lateral-Flow Immuno-Assay (dB-PCR-NALFIA) as a novel diagnostic tool for VL and its subsequent evaluation in the field.