Tropical parasite warning as infection spreading rapidly across US - standard deterrents deemed ineffective
Leishmania Mexicana is a tropical parasite that causes skin sores and can leave scars
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A flesh-eating tropical parasite has been detected across the US in patients who say they have not travelled outside of the country.
The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has found that Leishmania Mexicana, a tropical parasite that causes skin sores and can leave scars, has likely been spreading through sand flies.
Sand flies are small enough to slip through deterrents, such as ordinary mosquito nets on tents or window screens.
“Sometimes you don’t even notice that you’ve been bitten,” said Dr Mary Kamb, a medical epidemiologist at the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
A Syrian kid suffering from leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease spread by the bite of sandflies
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Cutaneous leishmaniasis infects up to 1 million people each year, mainly in the Middle East, central Asia, northern Africa and Latin America.
Kamb and her colleagues say they have detected leishmaniasis in some tissue samples from patients who say they have not travelled outside of the States.
Most of those sampled who are infected live in Texas – it is the only state that requires doctors to report leishmaniasis cases.
After a genetic analysis of these samples, it was discovered that these patients all had leishmaniasis skin infections.
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It begins with a small bump that then turns into ulcerous sores, usually within weeks or months of a person being bitten.
“People could be asymptomatic and not develop anything, but when people are symptomatic, they develop ulcers on their skin and sometimes it starts like a little tiny volcano with a crater in it,” Kamb said.
The infection can also infect internal organs such as the liver and bone marrow.
Visceral leishmaniasis, a more severe type of leishmaniasis, is not believed to be found in the US, according to CNN.
A doctor speaks to a patient suffering from Leishmaniasis
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It also affects the internal organs and can be fatal.
About half a dozen cases of leishmaniasis skin infections are reported in non-travellers in America each year, said Dr Luiz Oliveira, a staff scientist at the National Institutes of Health.
“It’s not just a traveller’s disease anymore,” Oliveira said.
According to the World Health Organization, it has been listed as an “epidemic” in the United States, as well as in several other countries.