Topical treatment of New World cutaneous leishmaniasis in Belize: a clinical study.

Background: Many studies have been performed during the past decade to find an effective topical therapy for cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL).

Objective: Our purpose was to evaluate the effect of paromomycin ointment (P-ointment) containing 15% paromomycin sulfate and 12% methylbenzethonium chloride on Belizean patients with New World CL.

Methods: Fifty-three patients were treated twice daily for 14 to 21 days with P-ointment.

Topical treatment of cutaneous leishmaniasis in Belize: in vitro and in vivo studies with Leishmania mexicana.

Strains of Leishmania mexicana isolated from Belizian patients were found to be highly susceptible to paromomycin sulphate (PR) treatment. This drug at 100 micrograms ml-1 destroyed 85-99.5% of in vitro cultivated Leishmania promastigotes within 4 days of exposure to the drug.

Prevalence of leptospirosis in Belize.

In a search for leptospirosis in Belize, at least one current case was diagnosed among 11 febrile hospital patients examined in a 2-week period in mid-1984. Sera from 440 survey subjects in 6 schools, 4 urban communities and 9 rural communities were examined for leptospiral antibodies by the microscopic agglutination test. 20 of 174 (11.