Meta-Analysis
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Methodol. Jul 20, 2022; 12(4): 305-318
Published online Jul 20, 2022. doi: 10.5662/wjm.v12.i4.305
Prevalence of human leishmaniasis in Sudan: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Musa Ahmed, Abdullah Abdulslam Abdullah, Idris Bello, Suad Hamad, Aboelgassim Bashir
Musa Ahmed, Abdullah Abdulslam Abdullah, Idris Bello, Department of Reproductive Health Sciences, Pan African University Life and Earth Sciences Institute, University of Ibadan, Ibadan 119, Oyo state, Nigeria
Musa Ahmed, Department of Veterinary Surgery and Anaesthesia, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, ALsalam University, Al-fula 120, West Kordofan state, Sudan
Abdullah Abdulslam Abdullah, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Sciences, University of Gadarif, Gadarif 208, Sudan
Idris Bello, Department of Animal Health and Production Technology, Oyo State College of Agriculture and Technology, Igboora 120, Oyo state, Nigeria
Suad Hamad, Department of Zoonotic Disease and Disease Control, Ministry of Animal Resources, Al-Hamadi 215, South Kordofan state, Sudan
Aboelgassim Bashir, Department of Pre-Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, AL-Salam University, Al-Fulla 209, West Kordofan state, Sudan
Author contributions: Ahmed M, Abdulslam Abdullah A, Bello I, Hamad S, and Bashir A conceived and designed the review, developed the search strings, and rigorously reviewed the manuscript; Ahmed M, Abdulslam Abdullah A, and Hamad S carried out the draft of the manuscript; Abdulslam Abdullah A is the guarantor of the review; Ahmed M and Abdulslam Abdullah A screened and selected studies, extracted the data, evaluated the quality of the studies, and carried out analysis and interpretation.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declared no potential conflict of interest concerning the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2009 Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the PRISMA 2009 Checklist.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Abdullah Abdulslam Abdullah, MSc, Academic Research, Lecturer, Department of Reproductive Health Sciences, Pan African University Life and Earth Sciences Institute, University of Ibadan, Ibadan- Oyo state Nigeria, Ibadan 119, Oyo state, Nigeria. bahlol32029@gmail.com
Received: December 6, 2021
Peer-review started: December 6, 2021
First decision: January 25, 2022
Revised: January 31, 2022
Accepted: June 26, 2022
Article in press: June 26, 2022
Published online: July 20, 2022
Processing time: 225 Days and 19.2 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND

There are three main forms of leishmaniasis in humans: cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL), visceral leishmaniasis (VL), and mucocutaneous leishmaniasis. The prevalence of human leishmaniasis varies widely in different countries and different regions of the same country. To date, there is no overall estimation of the prevalence of human leishmaniasis in Sudan.

AIM

To determine the pooled prevalence of human leishmaniasis and the disease risk factors among Sudanese citizens.

METHODS

From all articles written in English or Arabic languages conducted before the 4th of August 2021 from [Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, and MEDLINE, African Journals Online (AJOL), ResearchGate, direct Google search, Google Scholar, and universities websites], just 20 articles with a total of 230960 participants were eligible for this study. Data synthesis and analysis were done using STATA software, version 16. EndNote citation manager version X9.3.3 and Reference Citation Analysis (RCA) were used to remove the duplicated studies and manage the citation respectively.

RESULTS

The overall pooled prevalence of human leishmaniasis in Sudan was 21% (with confidence interval 12%-30%). CL was the most common type of leishmaniasis in Sudan, with a pooled prevalence of 26% followed by VL (18%). Nevertheless, the pooled prevalence of human leishmaniasis in Sudan was higher in males compared with females (60% vs 40%). The current results revealed that the people in the age group between 15 and 44 were the most affected group (60%), and central Sudan has the highest pooled prevalence of human leishmaniasis (27%) compared with other regions of Sudan. Finally, the prevalence of human leishmaniasis seems to decrease with time.

CONCLUSION

This study showed that human leishmaniasis infection is still endemic in many regions in Sudan and highly prevalent in central and eastern Sudan, and CL is the most prevalent in the country. Males and adults were more susceptible to infection compared with females and children. However, the human leishmaniasis prevalence decreased relatively over time.

Keywords: Cutaneous leishmaniasis; Human leishmaniasis; Meta-analysis; Prevalence; Sudan; Visceral leishmaniasis

Core Tip: A comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis study was conducted to find the pooled prevalence of leishmaniasis and its associated factors among Sudanese citizens. After applying all required quality check-ups for the individual studies, 20 studies were included in this study. The pooled prevalence of human leishmaniasis in Sudan was 21%, and cutaneous leishmaniasis was the commonest form of leishmaniasis in Sudan. Finally, the results of this study showed that human leishmaniasis infection is still endemic in many regions in Sudan.