BACKGROUND: The search for a correlation between chemokine levels in plasma or serum and protection from HIV infection or progression to AIDS has been attempted by a number of workers. Chemokines are also suggested to play a role in immunity to Leishmania and Leishmania co-infection with HIV. OBJECTIVE: To assess plasma level of alpha chemokine (CXCL12, formerly known as SDF-1alpha) and beta chemokines (CCL3, CCL4 and CCL5, formerly known as MIP-1alpha, MIP-1beta and RANTES, respectively) in HIV Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL) and HIV/VL coinfection. METHODS: Frozen serum samples from a cross sectional study were used. The samples (n = 80) were comprised of healthy controls (n = 20), HIV patients (n = 20); Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL) patients (n = 22), and HIV/VL coinfected patients (n = 18). Chemokine levels of MIP-1alpha, MIP-1beta, RANTES, and SDF-1alpha of the serum samples were determined using ELISA. RESULTS: MIP-1alpha and MIP-1beta expression were significantly elevated in Leishmania infected (p < 0.001) and in HIV/ VL co-infected individuals (p < 0.001) as compared to the control groups, while no significant difference was seen between HIV infected patients p > 0.05, implying that VL alone might modulate the production of these two chemokines in the case of co-infection In RANTES, however, its expression was significantly higher in HIV patients compared to controls (p = 0.002). Further assessment of serum RANTES concentration in HIV patients has shown a tendency of negative association with viral load. Higher amount of the alpha chemokine, SDF-1alpha, was detected in the HIV patients (p = 0.001) than the control group. Also a trend of positive association between SDF-1alpha and CD4 count was observed CONCLUSION: From our data we can speculate that RANTES and SDF-1alpha might be involved in the regulation of HIV; and MIP-1alpha and MIP-1beta in VL. Therefore, enhancing or suppressing the production of these chemokines might help in therapeutic intervention of VL or HIV.