| Leishmaniasis from Iraq and Afghanistan |
| Animal Park host Ben Fogle seriously ill after contracting flesh-eating bug in Peru TV presenter Ben Fogle is seriously ill after contracting a flesh-eating disease in the Peruvian jungle. Doctors believe the Animal Park host, 34, has caught Leishmaniasis - caused by protozoan parasites transmitted by the bite of a species of sand fly. Fogle's illness could jeopardise his fitness levels ahead of his South Pole expedition in December. The former Castaway star spent eight weeks filming in South America over the summer for his BBC2 show Extreme Dreams. Following his return to England, Fogle was soon struck down with a mystery virus and left bed-ridden for three weeks. Sandfly: A sandfly similar to this one is thought to have transmitted protozoan parasites to Fogle, causing leishmaniasis After undergoing a series of tests at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London, doctors believe he has the flesh-eating bug. Fogle currently has a painful, inch-wide hole in his forearm and is planning to undergo a month of treatment to rid himself of the disease. He will have to visit the London hospital where he will have a metal compound put into his blood stream through an intravenous drip each day. The poisonous compound should kill off the parasite but it could also leave Ben feeling unwell. Fogle is scheduled to join former Olympic rower James Cracknell to represent Great Britain in the race to the South Pole in December. He has already missed some of the vital training sessions for the expedition, which is scheduled to start on December 14th. A spokesperson for Ben has confirmed he had the condition. They said: 'Ben is being treated for this condition but he is very fit and he has great confidence in the specialists who are treating him.' The persistence, dissemination, and visceralization tendency of Leishmania major Persistence of the L. major amastigotes in the tissues differed from those of other species causing visceral diseases. These findings demonstrate a possible visceralization tendency for L. major previously recorded for L. tropica and L. mexicana. Viscerotropic leishmaniasis from Gulf War 1 Imported Visceral Leishmaniasis: Diagnostic Dilemmas Leishmania major and L. tropica generally cause cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL). Exceptional cases have been described, such as visceral outcomes in individuals infected with L. tropica (13). These cases are referred to as viscerotropic leishmaniasis and differ from classical VL in the variable pathologies observed, with several patients not having the typical presentation of VL and low antileishmania antibody titers. |
| UBC researcher finds new way to treat devastating fungal infections Pharmaceutical Sciences Prof. Kishor M. Wasan has created a liquid preparation that incorporates drug molecules in fat (lipid-based formulation) so that Amphotericin B, a potent anti-fungal agent, can be taken by mouth with minimal side effects. The agent, used for about 50 years, is currently administered intravenously and has significant toxic side effects, notably severe kidney toxicity as well as serious tissue damage at the intravenous injection site. |
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| Arvid and Janyce Brown Case The U.S. Army activated Arvid for service in the Persian Gulf in January of 1991. Arvid arrived in Saudi Arabia a few weeks later near the end of January. While stationed in Saudi Arabia, he was exposed to Leishmaniasis. Leishmaniasis is borne by sand flies. Arvid received military provided medical care for the bites of sand flies while in Saudi Arabia. The Army released Arvid from active military service on June 4, 1991, a little less than six months after he arrived in Saudi Arabia. At the time he left active service, Arvid had not been diagnosed with Leishmaniasis. On September 3, 1994, more than three years after his release from active service, Arvid married Janyce Elaine Surface, who has since passed away. Ten days after the wedding, on September 13, 1994, Arvid received a medical examination from the U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Michigan. This medical examination was part of the “Persian Gulf War Registry” project. According to the plaintiffs, this examination did not detect Arvid’s Leishmaniasis. Janyce bore Arvid two children: Asa, born August 30, 1995, and Helen, born June 18, 1997. Arvid unknowingly transmitted his Leishmaniasis to Janyce through personal and sexual contact, and Janyce, in turn, transmitted it to their children in utero. Arvid was diagnosed with the disease by a civilian doctor on October 1, 1998. His wife and children were diagnosed with the disease about two years later on October 4, 2000. |
| Disfiguring Skin Disease Plaques Afghanistan Kabul, battered and neglected for years, has the world's worst outbreak of leishmaniasis, health experts say. "It's out of control, absolutely out of control," said Reto Steiner, a medic with the German Medical Service which helps run the Kabul clinic. |
| Military Ban on Blood Donations People who actually get the disease are permanently deferred," she explained. "The issue with those who are exposed is that there is an incubation period before any symptoms appear the deferral will prevent them from unknowingly donating blood." According to the Armed Services Blood Program office, the parasite that causes the disease has been proven to survive in blood products stored under standard conditions for up to 25 days, and at least six cases of transfusion- transmitted cases of the disease have been reported. |
| AABB Ban on Blood DonationsDue to the risk of transfusion-transmitted leishmania blood collection facilities should begin deferring prospective donors who have been to Iraq as soon as possible but no later than Oct 30, 2003. Armed services personnel often give blood at civilian facilities..... |
| Visceral Infection Caused by Leishmania tropica in Veterans of Operation Desert Storm L. tropica can produce visceral infection that can cause unexplained systemic illness in persons returning from areas where this organism is endemic. |
| Some (some 80%)in 296th hit by 'Baghdad Boil' Approximately 80 percent of the soldiers with the Army Reserve's 296th Transportation Company in Brookhaven are infected with a parasitic disease contracted while serving in Iraq, according to the company commander. |
| Kabul: A City in Intensive Care Al Jazeera by David Foster We are at a clinic on the outskirts of Kabul where Afghan men, women and children are queuing-up outside in the blazing sun to be treated for Leishmaniasis. It was upsetting to watch - it must have been terrifying for the children being treated. The syringe was inserted four times. In the case of two babies, so close to their eyes that one slip would have been disastrous. The screaming didn't stop. |
| Illness in a Redeployed Soldier Although malaria and leishmaniasis continue to be the most common deployment-related illnesses, brucellosis must also be considered in the differential of any redeployed soldier with headache, fever, and body aches. Public health as well as command elements must reinforce their role in preventing exposure to this pathogen |
| Dual Effort Helps Keep Mosquitoes and Flies Down By Spec. Charles Bateman, 61st Medical Detachment (PM) May 28, 2007 - 1:19:57 PM Spec. Charles Bateman sorts the catch from the night prior. (Photo by 61st Medical Detachment public affairs) Blackanthem Military News, BAGHDAD, Iraq – Rising temperatures on Victory Base Camp are annoying, but it becomes more annoying when insect populations rise. The 61st Medical Detachment (PM) handles preventive medicine issues in Iraq. One preventive medicine task is to monitor the vector populations and initiate control measures. The Anopheles mosquito, which can transmit malaria, concerns the 61st PM. “Another is sand flies, which can transmit leishmaniasis,” said Spec. Tamaryn Swickheimer, 61st PM. The 61st accomplishes this mission by setting out forty mosquito light traps at different sites throughout Victory Base Camp twice a week. |
| Think YOU have a bug problem? "There were some places that soldiers and other Vector Control workers absolutely wouldn't go because of leishmaniasis," says Manon. "It's almost like getting leprosy. It's bad news." Will Climate Change bring more disease? Until recently, diseases such as malaria, leishmaniasis and Lyme disease were considered exotic ailments but with predicted changes in climate and the right environmental conditions, these diseases have the potential to spread throughout Europe. |
| Effect of topical honey application along with intralesional injection of glucantime in the treatment of cutaneous leishmaniasis Topical application of honey has been shown to be effective in treatment of the post-operative wound infections, reducing the need for antibiotics and finally reducing remaining scar |
| Daschle Letter To Rumsfeld December 10, 2003 "For example, funding for research into prevention, diagnoses, and treatment of leishmaniasis was halted in 2002. With research stalled, physicians are forced to treat our soldiers with Pentosam, a toxic drug with serious side effects, even though promising alternatives are ready to be tested. |
| A Deadly Danger To Every Troop Serving In Or Near Iraq; It Can Kill You, It Can Kill Your Wife, It Can Kill Your Kids: And The V.A. Tries To Cover It Up August 07, 2006 Paul Egan, The Detroit News [Excerpts] SWARTZ CREEK Nobody can say U.S. Army veteran Arvid Brown’s Gulf War illness is all in his head. Brown’s late wife, Janyce, caught leishmaniasis — a sometimes deadly parasitic disease borne by sand flies that can attack the body’s cells and internal organs — a malady he brought home from Operation Desert Storm. So did the Swartz Creek couple’s two young children. Now, the U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled the federal government and the Department of Veterans Affairs can be sued for alleged failure to diagnose Brown’ s illness and for any injuries he and his family suffered. Veterans’ groups are hailing the decision as a victory for families of tens of thousands of veterans of not only the first Gulf War, in which Brown served, but subsequent Mideast conflicts. “This is a huge case,” said Joyce Riley, spokeswoman for the American Gulf War Veterans Association in Versailles, Mo. “This gives a lot of veterans a lot of hope.” When Brown, now 48, returned from the Gulf War in 1991, he couldn’t understand why his once-vigorous health was deteriorating. His head, muscles and bones ached, his strength was sapped; he was constantly exhausted but could not sleep. Doctors with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs could not pinpoint an ailment. They denied him disability benefits in 1995, and Brown said they prescribed painkillers and mood-altering drugs that made things worse. [This is so typical. The assholes do that for everything: hey, it’s OK, go ahead, be a drug addict. One more expressions of thanks from an ungrateful government.] It was Brown’s wife, Janyce, who had the research skills and persistence eventually to find a doctor who in 1998 diagnosed Brown with leishmaniasis. By then, Janyce, too, had contracted the disease and both the couple’s children had been born with it and other ailments, according to medical reports filed in the case from Dr. Gregory Forstall, then-director of infectious diseases at McLaren Regional Medical Center in Flint, now in private practice. The government has not disputed the medical reports. Janyce Brown developed a series of ailments and last year died at age 43 of a rare and inoperable form of liver cancer. Though no definite link was established between her leishmaniasis and other diseases, Arvid Brown said his wife was healthy before they met. Janyce Brown in 2004 brought a $125 million lawsuit against the government, but a federal judge in Detroit ruled the family couldn’t sue for injuries a soldier suffered while on active duty. Late last month, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati partially overturned O’Meara’s decision, saying the government is not liable for injuries suffered while Brown was on active duty but it can be sued for what happened once he returned to Michigan. The government may appeal, officials said. “They should not be allowed to just use us up and throw us away,” said Brown, now alone and raising two disabled children, ages 9 and 10, on his disability income. “Somebody has got to be accountable.” Mark Zeller, 42, a Gulf War veteran in Dahlonega, Ga., said he is about to bring a lawsuit against the government and believes the decision in Brown’s case will strengthen his legal position. “I can’t do anything and I have to sleep all the time,” said Zeller, who has been diagnosed by Veterans Affairs doctors with chronic fatigue syndrome but says his wife and five children also constantly suffer from flulike symptoms. Leishmaniasis is little-known in North America but common in southwest Asia and many other parts of the world. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 12 million people in the tropics and subtropics have the disease. One form produces skin lesions. The more severe and deadly form, which Brown has, attacks blood cells and the body’s internal organs. Like malaria, it is a chronic disease that can be controlled but not cured. [And guess what. Lots of troops in Iraq get the skin lesions. And the military doctors give them a little cream to make it go away. And they do NOT tell the troops that the parasite the causes the skin lesions can still be alive and well insider your body, hibernating, and then breaking loose to infect and destroy your internal organs. And kill you. And kill anybody who gets it from you. These rats are the enemy, not the Iraqis.] Dr. Katherine Murray Leisure is a former Department of Veterans Affairs doctor now in private practice in Lebanon, Pa., specializing in infectious diseases. She said leishmaniasis if often difficult to diagnose and could be an underlying factor in half or more of the thousands of cases of veterans commonly referred to as suffering from “Gulf War syndrome.” Bedouins and others who live in the desert clothe their entire bodies for good reasons, Murray Leisure said. But, when U.S. forces go to the desert to fight, “we try to pretend we’re at the Jersey shore.” No reliable numbers are available on how many family members believe they have been infected. But Riley, a registered nurse and former U.S. Air Force captain, said she believes tens of thousands of veterans’ relatives have suffered. “I think this is the Titanic,” said Robert P. Walsh, Brown’s Battle Creek attorney. “All these guys saw was the tip of the iceberg.” Arvid Brown, who grew up in southwest Detroit, spent about six months overseas during Desert Storm, helping to build, maintain and operate a prisoner of war camp near Hafr Al-Batin in northeastern Saudi Arabia, about 25 miles from the Iraqi border. Brown remembers the sand flies, the camel spiders and the bug repellent. He remembers meeting soldiers in the desert who wore dogs’ flea collars around their necks, wrists and ankles and thinking how unhealthy that seemed. The muscle aches, bone pains, headaches and rashes began while he was in Saudi Arabia, but “it was easy to attribute it to heat and everything I was doing,” Brown recalled. Solving the mystery would take seven years as Brown’s condition worsened through periods of disorientation, blackouts, extreme light sensitivity and almost unbearable pain. By 1998, when he was finally diagnosed, Brown had lost his job, been forced to give up driving and said he awoke early most mornings from a fitful sleep, vomiting blood. Veterans Affairs doctors, who according to court records examined Brown on Sept. 13, 1994, but did not detect the disease, said he was suffering anxiety attacks and prescribed pills, Brown said. The department did not grant him benefits until 1998 and only this year recognized his diagnosis of leishmaniasis. Brown wed Janyce Surface in September 1994 as his health continued to spiral downward. He lost his job and they struggled to pay bills. Children arrived: Asa, now 10, in 1995, and his sister, Helen, now 9, in 1997. Both were born with severe handicaps and later tested positive for leishmaniasis. Helen is still unable to speak. It was Janyce Brown who got her husband an appointment with Forstall, who diagnosed Arvid Brown with leishmaniasis in October 1998. Chemotherapy put the disease into remission, though Brown continues to struggle with his health today. By 2000, Janyce Brown and both children had also tested positive for leishmaniasis. As Janyce struggled to care for her husband and look after two young children with cerebral palsy, her own health rapidly deteriorated. She died at home of cancer. “She was an extremely intelligent individual, someone with the will and the nerves of steel and the tenaciousness of the meanest bulldog you had ever come across,” Brown said. “She was fighting for her husband, the man she loved … and her children … She will always be my biggest hero.” |
| When they tell you leishmaniasis is nothing to worry about and will heal itself in a few months remember what happened to this family. Update Arvid and Janyce Brown case VA Owes A Duty to Veteran and his family Veterans Today This is a rather tragic case of a Gulf War veteran who contracted an infectious disease while deployed and later transmitted the disease to his wife who in turn transmitted it to their child in utero. The wife has since died. VA initially sought governmental immunity under the Feres Doctrine but, in an appeal by attorney Robert Walsh to the 6th Circuit, this was found to not be applicable in a claim against VA. Now a federal judge has denied the government's efforts to have the lawsuit terminated as a matter of law ruling that our case can proceed on the theory that VA doctors owe family members a duty to warn them of potential risks when the veteran has symptoms of an infectious disease. |
| Diagnostic and Treatment Options Under Construction |
| Spread of disease tied to US Combat Deployments When Army Colonel Peter J. Weina , director of the leishmania diagnostics laboratory at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Md., spent months traveling around Iraq in 2003, he found that some commanders had taken no precautions to guard against infection. |
| Global warming 'spawns flesh-eating virus' in the UK Publisher: Pam Caulfield Published: 06/08/2007 Global warming in the UK is spawning a fatal flesh-eating disease, scientists have warned. At current rates, the numbers of people suffering Leishmaniasis will increase dramatically, according to a study at the University of Hull. The disease is caused by a parasite from sand fly bites usually found only in tropical climates. |
| Epidemic MIddle East Iraq Details here Over 180 children have been affected with Baghdad boil disease, or leishmaniasis, in Iraq's southern province of Qadissiyah, about 130km south of Baghdad, local officials said. Leishmaniasis is known by different local names, including oriental sore, Aleppo button, Jericho boil and Delhi boil. In its most unpleasant form - visceral leishmaniasis - organ failure and death can result. The disease's incubation period is up to six months, so thousands could have the disease without knowing it. "It is a dangerous disease which hits mostly children and could lead to death or leave skin deformities if no appropriate treatment is available," said Fatih Abdul-Salam, a dermatologist at Qadissiyah General Hospital. He said leishmaniasis is transmitted by the bite of the midge-like female phlebotomine sandflies - tiny sand-coloured blood-sucking flies. "The disease has spread because of the lack of medical measures in the province and the lack of medicines, as most of those available have expired," Abdul-Salam said. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the currently-used drugs are in any case toxic, and have severe adverse reactions. They are also very costly. Nearly half of the current cases are in the Siniya area, about 15km west of Qadissiyah's provincial capital, Diwaniyah. "About a month ago, we informed the provincial officials about the spread of this disease in our area and that we did not have enough medicines for it," said Farhan Mohammed, the head of Siniya local council. "But no one responded in a serious way and that contributed to the spread of this disease, as our modest efforts in the area's medical centre were not enough," Mohammed said. According to WHO, the 20 or so infective species or subspecies of the parasite cause a range of symptoms, some of which are common (fever, malaise, weight loss, anaemia) - and swelling of the spleen, liver and lymph nodes in its visceral form. Cutaneous leishmaniasis - the most common form - causes 1-200 simple skin lesions which self-heal within a few months but which leave unsightly scars. Mucocutaneous leishmaniasis begins with skin ulcers causing massive tissue destruction, especially of the nose and mouth.) |
Thousands of cases of Leishmaniasis have been diagnosed in soldiers who have deployed to Iraq and/or Afghanistan. A much smaller number of cases have been diagnosed in civilian contractor employees due to a lack of awareness or concern. In December of 2003 we, not the doctors, finally figured out that leishmaniasis was what was attacking my husband's reconstructed leg. There was article about it in USA Today. We contacted as many contractors as we could think of and most of them had not been warned to take precautions against sandfly bites. With the potentially long latency period that Leishmaniasis species are capable of there are likely thousands of more cases that have gone undiagnosed in unsuspecting soldiers and civilian contractors. The US military claims the large percentage of leishmaniasis cases that have been diagnosed are of the cutaneous species L major. It is claimed that this species is of little concern as it only causes lesions on the skin and does not visceralize. Unfortunately this is not always true. It has not yet been proven why some species of Leishmaniasis limit themselves to skin lesions and others migrate to the bones and organs. It is thought to be as simple as the temperature variation from the skin to the body's core. Leishmaniasis major is evolving, becoming more and more diffused and showing tendencies to visceralize. Whether this is a natural mutation or is being provoked by environmental contaminates such as depleted uranium or others is also not known. Leishmaniasis tropica is known to visceralize and is endemic to urban areas of Iraq and Afghanistan. All cases of leishmaniasis should be of concern as the parasite is blood borne and can be transmitted sexually, congenitally, and by blood transfusion. Diagnoses can be difficult and becomes more difficult the longer you have it. The DBA insurance companies, the workmans compensation that contract employees are stuck with, are taking advantage of this difficulty in diagnosing to refuse to pay for medical treatment and lost wages. Contact Marcie Hascall Clark junglem@yahoo.com 321 799 6799 |
| Morgellon's Biotechnology gone awry or Simple Psycosis? NaturalNews There's a feeling of bugs crawling under your skin, day and night; continuously haunting you. Sharp stings from what feels like bees constantly torment you, keeping you awake for days on end. Intense burning and itching from these unseen forces invade your life, robbing you of your everyday activities, causing fear and agony as the time wears on, with no end in sight. To top it all off, to your horror you discover that strange red, blue, black, white, and translucent fibers are literally coming out of your pores, accompanied by strange black specks. Then the fatigue and joint pain begin. Sound like something out of a science fiction movie? It's not. Everyday thousands of people across the country are experiencing these horrible symptoms. Many times, their family and friends do not believe, and leave them to endure their suffering alone. They are called crazy. They are told they have delusions of parasites, or DOP for short. They are labeled, ridiculed, humiliated, and most of all, scared. They have a condition known as Morgellons Disease. |
| Ben Vogle back in chemotherapy Judged fit enough to set off on a 500-mile trek to the South Pole with James Cracknell over Christmas and the New Year, Ben Fogle appeared to have made a full recovery from the flesh-eating disease that he contracted while filming Extreme Dreams in Peru last summer. Now, alas, the intrepid television presenter tells me that it has returned with a vengeance. "I am facing six weeks of chemotherapy and going to hospital for several hours a day to be put on drips to treat the condition," says Fogle, 35, of his battle with leishmaniasis. "I am really frustrated as I am normally so active." Most people who are diagnosed with the condition take months to convalesce and Fogle accepts that he may have been reckless to have headed off to the South Pole so soon after completing his initial course of treatment. The potentially life- threatening condition is transmitted by the bite of a species of sand fly and can cause extensive disfigurement. Fogle, speaking to me at the launch of the Royal Parks Half Marathon in Hyde Park, was, however, confident that he would be able to beat it. "I have written a book with James about our trip to the South Pole which is coming out in June and I have already signed up to launch it in person at the Cheltenham Literary Festival," he says. "It is an engagement I am determined to keep, come what may." Ben In Hospital Tuesday Nov 18 2008 Ben Fogle has started treatment for Leishmaniasis Vianna, a rather unpleasant skin eating parasite passed by the bite of a sand fly. Ben contracted the parasite while filming in Peru. Ben currently has a deep lesion an inch in diameter on his arm however Mucocutaneous leishmaniasis produces destructive and disfiguring lesions of the face and left untreated can lead to death. Mucocutaneous leishmaniasis is treated with a thirty day course of toxic pentavalent antimonials in high dose administered daily by IV infusion. As pentavalent is toxic and classified as a ‘poison’ side effects included aching, arthralgia, fatigue, gastrointestinal upset, elevation of amylase, lipase, and liver enzyme levels, leukopenia, anemia, and electrocardiographic abnormalities. The treatment can be traumatic to the patient, and many are hospitalised for the duration. Ben is responding well to the course of medication which he is receiving daily by a team of experts at the University College Hospital. Ben’s health is being monitored closely by a team of doctors and is undergoing a full medical, incluiding ECG’s and blood tests every other day. ‘I am feeling frustrated, but reassured that I am in expert hands, which is more than can be said for the 12 million people who also suffer leishmania in South America and Africa each year, many of whom sadly die’. ‘While the treatment is unpleasant, I am reassured that it has a high success rate and would like to thank all the NHS staff at UCH for their kind, professional care and help especially in these first few difficult days of treatment’. ‘I would like to thank everyone for their kind thoughts and reassure everyone that apart from the rather large hole in one arm and the canula in the other, I am feeling optimistic and looking forward to the completion of the course and heading to Antarctica which I am relieved to say has no skin eating parasites’. |
| Diffuse Cutaneous Leishmaniasis Diffuse cutaneous leishmaniasis is a rare form of dermal infection, thus far found in Ethiopia and adjacent East Africa and in Central and South America. Diffuse cutaneous leishmaniasis begins as a single skin nodule, which continues spreading until the entire body is covered by bizarre nodular lesions. These lesions, which resemble keloids or large verrucae, are frequently confused with the nodules of lepromatous leprosy. The lesions do not ulcerate but contain vast aggregates of foamy macrophages stuffed with leishmania. Patients are usually immunologically unresponsive not only to leishmanin but also to other skin antigens, and the lesions often respond poorly to treatment. |
American doctors worry that North
American sandflies, which carry
another form of the disease, could
pick up the Asian strain from
returned veterans. It could then
spread through the general
population. Story here
American sandflies, which carry
another form of the disease, could
pick up the Asian strain from
returned veterans. It could then
spread through the general
population. Story here
A Genetic Link Found in Far-Flung
Victims of a Lethal Form of a Parasitic
Disease
Whether someone bitten by a sandfly goes on
to develop the most lethal form of leishmaniasis
is determined partly by the victim’s own genes,
a new study suggests.
Leishmaniasis, caused by parasites injected by
sandfly bites, has two forms: painful skin sores
(known to American troops in Iraq as “Baghdad
boils”) or, in less than 20 percent of cases, the
visceral form, sometimes called “kala azar,” that
attacks the organs and is fatal if untreated.
About 400,000 visceral cases develop annually,
90 percent of them in three places far from one
another and with different parasite subspecies:
northeastern Brazil, the India-Bangladesh
border and the Horn of Africa.
Because the disease hits some families harder,
a genetic propensity to get it has been long
suspected. The study, published in Nature
Genetics last week, compared DNA in almost
6,000 blood samples from India and Brazil. Both
Indians and Brazilians who got visceral
leishmaniasis had similar DNA variations.
Researchers are not sure what those mutations
do, but the nearest stretch of DNA determines
how white blood cells “grab” invaders to trigger
immune responses, said Peter J. Donnelly, an
Oxford statistics professor who also heads the
Wellcome Trust Center for Human Genetics and
was one of the paper’s authors.
While it is widely known that immune-system
genes influence susceptibility to cancer,
learning that they may also control susceptibility
to a parasitic disease was “quite interesting,”
Dr. Donnelly said.
Victims of a Lethal Form of a Parasitic
Disease
Whether someone bitten by a sandfly goes on
to develop the most lethal form of leishmaniasis
is determined partly by the victim’s own genes,
a new study suggests.
Leishmaniasis, caused by parasites injected by
sandfly bites, has two forms: painful skin sores
(known to American troops in Iraq as “Baghdad
boils”) or, in less than 20 percent of cases, the
visceral form, sometimes called “kala azar,” that
attacks the organs and is fatal if untreated.
About 400,000 visceral cases develop annually,
90 percent of them in three places far from one
another and with different parasite subspecies:
northeastern Brazil, the India-Bangladesh
border and the Horn of Africa.
Because the disease hits some families harder,
a genetic propensity to get it has been long
suspected. The study, published in Nature
Genetics last week, compared DNA in almost
6,000 blood samples from India and Brazil. Both
Indians and Brazilians who got visceral
leishmaniasis had similar DNA variations.
Researchers are not sure what those mutations
do, but the nearest stretch of DNA determines
how white blood cells “grab” invaders to trigger
immune responses, said Peter J. Donnelly, an
Oxford statistics professor who also heads the
Wellcome Trust Center for Human Genetics and
was one of the paper’s authors.
While it is widely known that immune-system
genes influence susceptibility to cancer,
learning that they may also control susceptibility
to a parasitic disease was “quite interesting,”
Dr. Donnelly said.
