Epidemiology of sporotrichosis in Latin America.

Applying the concept of 'epidemiological chain', it is successively analyzed: the etiologic agent, Sporothrix schenckii and its natural reservoirs (sources of infection); the different ways that infecting particles may reach man (mechanisms of infection); the susceptible population and the population at risk; the incidence and distribution by sex and age in countries of Latin America; the prevalence of the disease according to clinical cases in dermatological clinics and the variation of incidence rates in some countries with time; the influence of the environment mainly climatic conditions on the geographic distribution of the disease. Finally, according to Mackinnon's hypothesis, the climate could have a determining role on the predominance of a certain clinical form on another in different countries.