A Study on Molecular Aspects and Biomarkers

Leishmaniasis is group of vector borne diseases, caused by obligate intracellular protozoa of the genus Leishmania, named after its discoverer Sir William Leishman a Scottish Pathologist, (Leishman 1903). The Leishmania organism was first noticed by Cunnighum in 1885 in skin specimens of patients with Delhi Boil in India, and he described it as a "slime fungi", however, its protozoan nature was first recognized by Borovky (1898) in skin lesions of "sart sore" in Turkmenistan. Its intracellular nature was described subsequently by Leishman in (1900) and Donavan in 1903 independently while studying fatal cases of Kala-azar from India (Ross, 1903). Leishman observed the parasites in the splenic smears of a soldier in England, who died from a fever, known as Dum-Dum fever or kala-azar, contracted at Dum-Dum (Calcutta), and described the parasites as morphologically related to trypanosomes. The link between these organisms and kala-azar was eventually discovered by Major Ross who named them Leishmania donovani (Ross, 1903).