Global leishmaniasis surveillance updates 2024: consolidating gains and new initiatives

Overview

Leishmaniasis remains a major health problem in 4 eco-epidemiological areas of the world: the Americas, East Africa, North Africa and West and South-East Asia.

This report on global leishmaniasis surveillance follows those published in 2016–2024. Six indicators of leishmaniasis are publicly available from the Global Health Observatory (GHO). In addition, country profiles with up to 30 indicators are published from detailed data received from 45 Member States.

The aims of this report are to update the description of the GHO leishmaniasis indicators reported by Member States to WHO up to 2024, to describe specific indicators of gender and age distribution, relapse, visceral leishmaniasis (VL) case fatality rates (CFRs) and the burden of post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis (PKDL). The report also contains a brief section on VL treatment by regimen and treatment outcomes, HIV-VL coinfection, the Kala-azar Elimination Programme in South-East Asia and the VL elimination initiative in eastern Africa.