Background: Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is a neglected disease in tropical countries, including Iraq. Several studies have sought to examine chemotherapies for leishmaniasis treatment but most of them are of toxic and/or undesirable side effect, therefore, the need for investigating new fewer toxic therapies is essential. Aim of study: In this study, the cytotoxic effect of Artemisinin (ART), a novel herbal compound, was screened against the two forms, promastigotes and amastigotes, of the Iraqi isolate of Leishmania tropica, the causative agent of Baghdad boil. Material and methods: Different concentrations (1000, 500, 250, 125, 62.5, 31.25, 15.6 and 7.8) µM of Artemisinin were screened to investigate the leishmanicidal activity of th

Background: Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is a neglected disease in tropical countries, including Iraq. Several studies have sought to examine chemotherapies for leishmaniasis treatment but most of them are of toxic and/or undesirable side effect, therefore, the need for investigating new fewer toxic therapies is essential. Aim of study: In this study, the cytotoxic effect of Artemisinin (ART), a novel herbal compound, was screened against the two forms, promastigotes and amastigotes, of the Iraqi isolate of Leishmania tropica, the causative agent of Baghdad boil. Material and methods:  Different concentrations (1000, 500, 250, 125, 62.5, 31.25, 15.6 and 7.8) µM of Artemisinin were screened to investigate the leishmanic

This study illustrates in vitro effect of cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) on the treatment of Leishmania. In addition, the study evaluated the effect of drug treatment (pentostam) and the combination treatment of pentostan and CAP at different doses and incubation time 24 h in order to assess the most effective treatment. The duration of the cold plasma doses was 1 min, 2 min and 3 min, while the pentostam doses were 2.5 µg/ml and 5 µg/ml. The combinations therapies included combining the three cold plasma doses with the pentostam doses to test 6 combinations of treated in vitro. The maximum growth inhibition was given by combination treated 46% and 44% for donovani and tropica leishamnia respectively; these results give an indi

Due to the importance of egg parasitoids inthe natural and biological control of economically important insects, including egg parasitoid Pseudoligositaba bylonica Viggiani on dubas bug, the spread of the parasitoid and population distribution of parasitoid, In order to estimate the role of parasitoid as one of the biological factors in decreasing population density of dubas bug on date palm. Some aspects of the life of parasitoids were also studied, including the role of insect parasitoids in organizing the population of their families, geographical distribution and hosts range of genus Pseudoligosita, seasonal presence of parasitoid Pseudoligositaba bylonica Viggiani (Hymenoptera: Trichogrammatidae) , life studies and percentages

Direct agglutination test was used to evaluate the immunogenicity of three different antigens inoculated in hamsters as one , two and three doses which were: Group (1) inoculated with autoclaved killed Leishmania tropica , Group (2) inoculated with BCG vaccine alone while Group (3) inoculated with mixed antigens (autoclaved killed Leishmania "AKL"+ BCG).(4) Control animals inoculated with phosphate buffer saline. The maximum level of antibody titers were evaluated in animal inoculated with one , two or three dose of mixed antigens (320 , 640 and 1280) respectively when it compared with animals inoculated with corresponding doses of AKL antigen (80 , 160 and 320) respectively. While the minimum level of antibody titers were observed in ani

The Leishmania donovani parasite causes visceral leishmaniasis (VL), an acute and fatal form of leishmaniasis. Because traditional therapy alternatives, such as glucantime and other pentavalent medicines, are toxic and have side effects, new treatments with fewer negative effects are needed. Only a handful of drugs are clinically beneficial to treatments of the disease, but considerable limitations threaten their very usage. Novel, safe, and efficient drugs, including those against antimalaria and leishmaniasis co-infections, are so essential. Artemether (ATM) is an Artemisinin derivative that has been demonstrated to be useful in the treatment of malaria and, more recently, leishmaniasis. The current research was carried out to evaluate th

The study included identification of Leishmania parasites from cases of cutaneous leishmaniasis, by examination of smears for LD bodies , isolation of parasites by culture in media , and characterisation of the isolated parasites by Isoenzyme analysis.Out of 100 cases suspected for cutaneous leishmaniasis ; 85 were diagnosed on culture for Leishmania promastigotes and this method was found to be superior to direct microscopy for amastgotes (LD bodies) .The cases included in this study belonged to different areas of Wasit/Iraq. There were 30 cases from Hay, 35 from Badra, and 35 cases from Suwaira.The distribution of infection in different age groups indi

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) or kala-azar is one of the worlds most neglected tropical diseases in mortality and fourth in morbidity, rK39 dipstick was used to diagnose the suspected infected patients as cheapest simple technique which can differentiate recent from chronic infection, for disease out-coming, naïve T-lymphocyte cells should be differentiated into pathogen-specific immunity responses, such as T-helper 1(Th-1) or (Th-2). HLA-G is a special protein defined as nonclassical HLA class I molecule can suppress the immune system through prevention of T-cell function by foul all T-cell mechanisms. So, this study aimed to detect and evaluate the level of sHLA-G in the sera of patients infected with VL. The results showed that there was