Although leishmaniasis is an intracellular infection, the contribution of CD8+ T-cells as immune correlates of the disease upon primary infection remained to be addressed (Wang et al., 1993; Huber et al., 1998) until the data from a low-dose experimental challenge in both Balb/c and C57BL/6 mice were extrapolated. Here, CD8A is linked to leishmaniasis.