Leishmaniasis

= Leishmaniasis - Outbreak in Afghanistan! = 2002. Afghanistan. War has recently broken out between the United States and the Taliban, the rural land of Afghanistan being the battlefield. Thousands of displaced farmers and locals migrate across the country to cities and new towns, bringing with them all of the endemic to the countryside diseases - including Leishmaniasis. The country's capital, Kabul, becomes home to almost a third of the 300,000 cases of cutaneous leishmaniasis throughout Afghanistan. The disease is transmitted by tiny sand flies, whose insensible bite makes it difficult to protect against.

//Leishmania// is a parasite which can be found world-wide, Australia and Antartica excluded. The disease is mainly experienced in two forms: the more common, non-fatal but disfiguring cutaneous form and the always fatal and slightly rarer visceral form. 90% of cutaneous leishmaniasis occurs in Afghanistan, Algeria, Iran, Saudia Arabia, Syria, Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. 90% of visceral leishmaniasis occurs in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sudan, Ethiopia and Brazil. Ten years later, due to a variety of factors leishmaniasis shows no sign of leaving Afghanistan - it is becoming an endemic epidemic.

//For more information, please check out the links below:// Structure - Leishmaniasis Transmission - Leishmaniasis Symptoms and Disease Progression - Leishmaniasis Pathogenesis - Leishmaniasis Treatment and Response - Leishmaniasis Contributing Factors - Leishmaniasis Citing - Leishmaniasis