CASE REPORT article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Parasitology
Emergence of autochthonous Leishmania infantum infection in dogs from Costa Rica confirmed by multimodal diagnostics: a series of case reports
Provisionally accepted
Victor M. Montenegro1
Leticia Cajal-Omella2Josué Campos-Camacho3Javier Jiménez-Tuk4Carlos Mata-Somarribas5Alejandro Alfaro-Alarcón1Mariana Guevara-González1Paula Peña3Joban Quesada6
L. Mario Romero-Vega1
Alicia Rojas6*- 1Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica, Heredia, Costa Rica
- 2Veterinaria Cavallini. Guanacaste, Costa Rica, Guanacaste, Costa Rica
- 3Universidad VERITAS Escuela de Medicina y Cirugia Veterinaria San Francisco de Asis, san rafael de coronado, Costa Rica
- 4Clínica Veterinaria Dr. Javier Jiménez Tuk. Heredia, Costa Rica, San José, Costa Rica
- 5Instituto Costarricense de Investigacion y Ensenanza en Nutricion y Salud, Tres Rios, Costa Rica
- 6Universidad de Costa Rica Facultad de Microbiologia, San José, Costa Rica
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Background: Canine visceral leishmaniasis (CVL) is a vector-borne zoonotic disease caused by Leishmania infantum. This parasite has been reported in humans and dogs from Costa Rica over the past four decades as sporadic reports. In this study, we analyzed eight cases of autochthonous infections in dogs presumably originating from Santa Cruz, Guanacaste and Santa Ana, San José, Costa Rica, none of which had a history of travel abroad. Methods: eight dogs with suspected CVL were analyzed by using serological assays (Speed Leish K® (VIRBAC Diagnostics, France) or Antigen Rapid CaniV-4 (Leish)® (BIONOTE, Mexico)), five dogs were detected in 2023, and three during 2025. Histopathological staining was applied in cases with spleen, dermal and lymph node involvement to determine the presence of Leishmania amastigotes. Blood, lymph node aspirates, conjunctival swabs or cutaneous lesions swabs were also analyzed for the presence of Leishmania spp. ITS1, hsp70 and kDNA fragments. Phylogenetic and haplotype network analyses were conducted for hsp70 and kDNA data. Results: four dogs showed various clinical manifestations that included persistent anemia, thrombocytopenia, splenomegaly, exfoliative dermatitis and onychogryphosis, whereas the other four dogs remained subclinical or asymptomatic. Histopathological analysis revealed numerous intracellular amastigotes in lymph node aspirates, spleen sections and ear skin biopsy. Moreover, seven out of eight dogs were positive in the serological analysis, and other seven to the Leishmania ITS1 PCR. Phylogenetic analysis
Keywords: protozoa, Canine visceral leishmaniais, zoonosis, One Health, case report
Received: 12 Sep 2025; Accepted: 19 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Montenegro, Cajal-Omella, Campos-Camacho, Jiménez-Tuk, Mata-Somarribas, Alfaro-Alarcón, Guevara-González, Peña, Quesada, Mario Romero-Vega and Rojas. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Alicia Rojas, anaalicia.rojas@ucr.ac.cr
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