Prior to DNA extraction, 200 L of blood was digested with proteinase K and incubated at +56C overnight. worlds most neglected diseases. Dogs are the main reservoirs/hosts of 3.04-fold for the control artesunate groups, respectively, was observed 30 days after treatment. Antibody levels continued to decrease further in the artesunate group, where 58% of cases became seronegative at the 6-month follow-up. All qPCR-positive dogs were negative after treatment with artesunate, while 14.3% remained positive with the appearance of two new cases in the control group. Artesunate was well tolerated, and no side effects were recorded. Treatment failures were similar in both groups with 27.27% (6/22), including 18.18% (4/22) mortality in the control group, 26.66% (4/15), including 13.33% (2/15) mortality in the artesunate group. This is the first report showing the potential of artesunate in the treatment of dogs with clinical leishmaniasis. Artesunate showed higher efficacy than the current first-line treatment for CanL without any adverse effects. It could be a good alternative chemotherapy for CanL, and may be considered for further studies in human leishmaniases. Further clinical trials are needed to confirm these findings, to determine if there are relapses after treatment and if dogs remain infective to sandflies, to define the ideal therapeutic dosage and duration of treatment with artesunate. Author summary Canine leishmaniasis LF3 (CanL) is a fatal, zoonotic vector-borne disease caused by antibody levels. Both groups showed improved clinical scores, parasitemia and antibody titers after treatment. After six months of follow-up, treatment success was very similar in both groups, and 72.73% (16/22) of the controls 73.34% (11/15) in the artesunate group had clinical improvement. All dogs initially seropositive by PCR became negative after artesunate treatment, while 14.3% remained positive with the appearance of new cases in the control group. Antibody titers decreased rapidly (from day 30) from baseline especially in the artesunate group, where 58% of the dogs converted to seronegative after 6 months. Artesunate could be a good alternative for treatment of leishmaniasis. Additional clinical trials are needed to obtain LF3 more data on this drug. Introduction Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is an infectious, vector-borne, chronic, systemic disease. It is a major zoonosis with significant clinical and epidemiological control priority in the world. The domestic dog is LF3 the main animal reservoir, while other wild animals, such as foxes, play a role in sylvatic transmission. (syn. has been well described in wild animals in Algeria, such as the jackal [24]. Clinical manifestations in infection in dogs can manifest as subclinical infection, a self-limiting illness or a serious life-threatening disease [26]. Treatment of CanL is a challenge because of the intracellular localization of the parasite [27]. Moreover, the World Health Organization (WHO) has suggested reserving antileishmanial drugs used for human VL for exclusive use in human leishmaniasis and not for veterinary medicine because of suspected drug-resistance development from use in LF3 animals [20]. Despite this, the first-line treatment for CanL is currently the combined use of leishmanicidal agents used as second-line drugs for humans (e.g., pentavalent antimonials, miltefosine) and allopurinol [25,28C31]. Some Rabbit Polyclonal to DRD4 of the chemotherapeutic compounds used for CanL are included within the 19th edition of WHO Model List of Essential Medicines (April 2015) against leishmaniasis: pentavalent antimonials, miltefosine, amphotericin B deoxycolate or liposomal formulations, and paromomycin. However, some other drugs are also effective, such as allopurinol, pentamidine, enrofloxacin, marbofloxacine, metronidazole, spiramycin, and ketoconazole [32]. Determination of the best drug is based on clinical examination and staging of CanL, according to immunodiagnostic test results, clinical signs, clinicopathological abnormalities and parasite load [29,25]. Most of these treatments are expensive and do not achieve complete cure of the disease, and some of them can cause important side effects [31,33]. Vomiting, lethargy, diarrhea and nephrotoxicity are common during the current treatments with pentavalent antimonials and miltefosine [27,31,33C36]. Prolonged administration of allopurinol frequently induces.