Infantile visceral Leishmaniasis: epidemiological, clinical and biological characteristics. About 93 case reports in the children hospital of Rabat

Infantile visceral leishmaniasis (LVI) is a problem of public health in Morocco. This parasitosis rages to the state of endemic and touches the infants. The goal of this survey is to draw up epidemiological, clinical and biologic profile of LVI in children hospitalized in the Children's Hospital of Rabat, and to prove the contribution of serology in diagnosis of this illness. This retrospective study concerned all LVI cases gathered in the HER during 5 years (from 1997 to 2001). For every patient included in this study, the authors collected geographical origin, age, sex, clinical data (splenomegaly, fever, hepatomegaly, paleness), and biologic data (numeration formulates red chalk, speed of sedimentation, protein in blood and electrophoresis of the proteins). The myelogram results were also exploited as well as results of serology when they were realized. Ninety-three LVI cases were listed with an age average of 3.5+/-3 years, and a sex ratio of 1.82 (p=0.032). Patients coming from farming surroundings or semi-urban were more numerous than those from cities: 85.5% versus 14.5% (p