Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is the most common clinical form of leishmaniasis and remains a major public health problem worldwide. In the Ethiopian setting, reports regarding the human immune response against CL infection are limited. Therefore, this study aimed to determine T lymphocyte subpopulations’ frequency, activation, and proliferation status from peripheral blood of LCL and DCL patients at the University of Gondar Hospital. An institutional based cross-sectional study was conducted on 22 confirmed CL patients attending the Leishmania Research and Treatment Center (LRTC) of the University of Gondar Hospital from January to June 2017. As a control, 14 healthy participants were recruited from Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) clinics of selected health centers. Blood samples were stained, and surface marker expression was evaluated by flow cytometry. Statistical analysis was performed using Kruskal-Wallis followed by Dunn’s multiple comparisons test and the differences were considered statistically significant when the P-values were 0.05). The expression levels of activation markers are associated with the LCL and DCL clinical forms of L. aethiopica caused CL. The presence of elevated levels of activated non-proliferating immune cells in DCL cases, as well as reduced numbers of CD8 T cells is consistent with a mechanism of T-cell activation followed by anergy and/or apoptosis.
Dubie et al. (Mon,) studied this question.