FIRE-EARTH Alert: Leishmaniasis

CJ Members

• Leishmaniasis infection rates are increasing among the U.S. soldiers and ecotourists.

• The military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan are responsible for spared  of  the parasitic infection, experts SAY.

• Details of the Alert are available from FIRE-EARTH PULSARS.

“New ‘Flesh-Eating’ Disease Spreading Across Syria and the Middle East”

Cases of Leishmaniasis up from 23,000 before the war to 41,000 in 2013: Syrian Ministry of Health

The disease is spreading across Syria, with cases also reported in Palestine, Israel, Lebanon and Turkey, according to reports.

“Between 2000 and 2012, there were only six reported cases of the disease in Lebanon.”

However, in 2013 alone, some 1,033 cases were reported in Southern Lebanon, of which 96 per cent occurred among the displaced Syrian refugees, the Lebanese Ministry of Health has said.

Refugee settlements in Nizip, southern Turkey, have reported several hundred cases of the disease.

Speaking to Mail Online, Dr Waleed Al-Salem, one of the authors of the research was carried out in the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, said: ‘It’s a very bad situation. The disease has spread dramatically in Syria, but also into countries like Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey and even into southern Europe with refugees coming in.

‘There are thousands of cases in the region but it is still underestimated because no one can count the exact number of people affected.

‘When people are bitten by a sand-fly – which are tiny and smaller than a mosquito – it can take anything between two to six months to have the infection.

‘So someone might have picked it up in Syria but then they may have fled into Lebanon or Turkey, oreven into Europe as they seek refuge.

‘Prior to the outbreak of war there was good control of diseases, parasites and sand flies but when the conflict started no one cared, conditions worsened and the health system broke down, which has created an ideal environment for disease outbreaks.’

Of course, it wasn’t that “no one cared.” It was that no one was able to provide adequate care because the United States, Israel, the GCC, and NATO had overrun the country with savage terrorists and destroyed the infrastructure, not to mention the Western sanctions imposed upon the country which, alone, would have made it difficult to treat.

Outbreak of Flesh-eating Disease Plagues Daesh-controlled Parts of Syria

Daesh imposes death sentence on occupied communities

The potentially deadly “flesh-eating” disease named leishmaniasis is rapidly spreading in Syria, caused by the sand flies feeding on the corpses dumped in the streets by Daesh (aka, ISIS, ISIL), the head of the Kurdish Red Crescent told Rudaw news.

“As a result of abominable acts by ISIS that included the killing of innocent people and dumping their corpses in streets, this is the leading factor behind the rapid spread of Leishmanisis disease,” said Dilqash Isa.

Leishmaniasis is a parasitic disease that is caused by infection with Leishmania parasites, which are spread by the bite of phlebotomine sand flies. There are several different forms of leishmaniasis in people. The most common forms are cutaneous leishmaniasis, which causes skin sores, and visceral leishmaniasis, which affects several internal organs (usually spleen, liver, and bone marrow), according to CDC.

The sand flies that transmit the parasite are only about one third the size of typical mosquitoes or even smaller.

“Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is endemic in many of the poorest countries of all continents. “Aleppo boil” is one of the recognised names given to this disease in the medical literature. Although CL used to be well-controlled and well-documented in Syria, its incidence has dramatically increased since the beginning of the war,” said a report.

“Currently, an outbreak has been observed due to the war in Syria and the lack of measures to combat the disease, particularly in the besieged and medically underserved areas. New publications from the Ministry of Health reveal shocking statistics. There was an incidence rate of 53,000 cases in 2012 and 41,000 cases were reported in the first 2 quarters of 2013 (13). According to a recent telephone conversation with the head of the Leishmaniasis Centre in Aleppo (Dr. Ahmad Jatal, personal communication), 22,365 cases were reported in the previous year in Aleppo alone.”

Sores caused by leishmaniasis. Source: Rudaw

Leishmaniasis Association in Syria

The symptoms of leishmaniasis are skin sores which erupt weeks to months after the person affected is bitten by sand flies. Other consequences, which can manifest anywhere from a few months to years after infection, include fever, damage to the spleen and liver, and anemia.

[Honey, smile for uncle Salman, cousin Obama and his family. —Editor]

Girl affected by lieshmaniasis. Photo taken in Ferdaws area of Aleppo by Syrian American Kenan Rahmani (via Rudaw).