Determination of high risk regions of cutaneous leishmaniasis in Turkey using spatial analysis.

The aim of this study was to use geographical analysis to determine the distribution of cutaneous leishmaniasis among the provinces of Turkey, as well as detection of the presence of any regional clustering in Turkey using spatial analyses. Geographic information systems based spatial analyses were performed on cutaneous leishmaniasis cases recorded by the Turkish Ministry of Health during the period from 1988-2006. Spatial analyses, including local and global spatial autocorrelation methods and clustering analysis were performed on the cutaneous leishmaniasis cases (1996-2006), to detect any trend or cluster and any particular province.