[leish-l] Baghdad Boil --

[K.P. Chang]

Baghdad Boil was previously used by the British for cutaneous leishmaniasis
seen in Iraq during the colonial time, I beleive. So, it's not new. There is a
symposium for this topic in the Ann Meet Am Soc Trop Med Hyg last week
(12/4-7). Those mentioned in the news article were the speakers who described
the key points in greater details.

KP

Peter Singfield wrote:

> New name for cutaneous Leishmaniasis??
>
> Baghdad Boil' disease afflicts 148 GIs in Iraq
>
> 05.12.2003 [17:15]
>
>
> Nearly 150 U.S. soldiers in Iraq have been diagnosed with a parasitic skin
> disease and hundreds more could unknowingly be infected, doctors reported
> Thursday.
>
> Doctors fear that soldiers returning from the front may consult doctors in
> the United States who have never seen the disease. Complicating matters:
> The best drug used to treat it is not licensed in the United States.
>
> Leishmaniasis, which soldiers have coined the "Baghdad Boil," is carried by
> biting sand flies and doesn't spread from person to person. It causes skin
> lesions that if untreated may take months, even years, to heal. The lesions
> can be disfiguring, doctors say.
>
> So far, 148 soldiers have confirmed cases, but hundreds more are expected,
> says Army Lt. Col. Russell Coleman, an entomologist who spent 10 months in
> Iraq with the 520th Theater Army Medical Laboratory. He reported the
> outbreak Thursday to the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene,
> meeting in Philadelphia.
>
> Sand flies are active during warm weather, and soon after U.S. troops
> arrived in Iraq in late March, "we started seeing soldiers basically eaten
> alive," Coleman says. "They'd get a hundred, in some cases 1,000 bites in a
> single night."
>
> Insect repellents and bed nets are standard issue, Coleman says, but many
> units failed to pack them when they were deployed.
>
> The sand flies have vanished with the cooler weather in Iraq, but because
> of a long incubation period, lesions may not appear for six months or
> longer after infection occurs. Coleman and Army Lt. Col. Peter Weina, a
> leishmaniasis expert still in Iraq, predicted in April that there would be
> 400 cases.
>
> All affected soldiers are being sent to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in
> Washington, D.C., to be treated with the drug Pentosam.
>
>
>  USA Today
>
> Article found at:
>
> http://www1.iraqwar.ru/iraq-read_article.php?articleId=28318&lang=en
>
>
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