ArticleInternational journal for parasitology2017
Minimally invasive microbiopsies: a novel sampling method for identifying asymptomatic, potentially infectious carriers of Leishmania donovani.
Article in International journal for parasitology, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers.
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Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed, 34 citations in OpenAlex.
- Lymphocyte-mediated immune responses to Leishmania infection.Nature reviews. Immunology · 2026Review
- Bi-directional highways and super-seeder tissues underpin parasite dissemination in experimental Leishmania donovani infection.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Report of the Seventh Post-Kala-Azar Dermal Leishmaniasis Consortium meeting, Kolkata, India, 28-29 November 2024.Parasites & vectors · 2026Article
- Leishmaniasis.Nature reviews. Disease primers · 2025Review
- Infectiousness of Leishmania major to Phlebotomus papatasi: differences between natural reservoir host Meriones shawi and laboratory model BALB/c mice.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2025Article
- Safety and reactogenicity of a controlled human infection model of sand fly-transmitted cutaneous leishmaniasis.Nature medicine · 2024Observational
- Chronic High-Level Parasitemia in HIV-Infected Individuals With or Without Visceral Leishmaniasis in an Endemic Area in Northwest Ethiopia: Potential Superspreaders?Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2024Article
- Article
- Asymptomatic Leishmania donovani infection and associated factors among blood donors attending at Metema district Blood Bank, Northwest Ethiopia: a cross- sectional study.Archives of public health = Archives belges de sante publique · 2023Article
- Visceral Leishmaniasis and the Skin: Dermal Parasite Transmission to Sand Flies.Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Article
- Article
- Spatial Point Pattern Analysis Identifies Mechanisms Shaping the Skin Parasite Landscape inFrontiers in immunology · 2021Article
- AssessingFrontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2021Article
- Xenodiagnosis to evaluate the infectiousness of humans to sandflies in an area endemic for visceral leishmaniasis in Bihar, India: a transmission-dynamics study.The Lancet. Microbe · 2021Article
- Minimally Invasive Microbiopsies as an Improved Sampling Method for the Diagnosis of Cutaneous Leishmaniasis.Open forum infectious diseases · 2020Article
- Evaluation of Rapid Extraction Methods Coupled with a Recombinase Polymerase Amplification Assay for Point-of-Need Diagnosis of Post-Kala-Azar Dermal Leishmaniasis.Tropical medicine and infectious disease · 2020Article
- Cutaneous parasitism in patients with American visceral leishmaniasis in an endemic area.Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical · 2020Article
- A review of microsampling techniques and their social impact.Biomedical microdevices · 2019Review
- Quantifying the Infectiousness of Post-Kala-Azar Dermal Leishmaniasis Toward Sand Flies.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2019Article
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 4 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is a potentially lethal, sand fly-borne disease caused by protozoan parasites belonging to the Leishmania donovani species complex. There are several adequate methods for diagnosing VL, but the majority of infected individuals remain asymptomatic, comprising potential parasite reservoirs for transmission of the disease. The gold standard for assessing host infectiousness to biting vector insects is xenodiagnosis (i.e. scoring infection rates among insectary-reared insects that had fed on humans suspected of being infected). However, when it comes to sand flies and leishmaniasis, xenodiagnosis is an intricate operation burdened by logistical hurdles and ethical concerns that prevent its effective application for mass screening of widely dispersed communities, particularly in rural regions of underdeveloped countries. Minimally invasive microbiopsy (MB) devices were designed to penetrate the skin to a depth of ∼200µm and absorb blood as well as skin cell lysates, mimicking the mode by which phlebotomine sand flies acquire blood meals, as well as their composition. MBs taken from 137 of 262 volunteers, living in endemic VL foci in Ethiopia, detected Leishmania parasites that could potentially be imbibed by feeding sand flies. Although the volume of MBs was 10-fold smaller than finger-prick blood samples, Leishmania DNA detection rates from MBs were significantly higher, implying that skin, more often than blood, was the source of parasites. Volunteers with histories of VL were almost as likely as healthy volunteers to test positive by MBs (southern Ethiopian focus: 95% CI: 0.35-2.59, P=1.0. northern Ethiopian focus 0.87: 95% CI: 0.22-3.76, P=1), suggesting the importance of asymptomatic patients as reservoirs of L. donovani. Minimally invasive, painless MBs should be considered for reliably and efficiently evaluating both L. donovani infection rates among large numbers of asymptomatic carriers and their infectiousness to blood-feeding sand flies.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.