Health officials are concerned about a deadly flesh-eating parasite that can be transmitted from dogs to humans.
Leishmaniasis is a parasitic disease that can cause skin ulcers. There are several types of the disease, including the less serious cutaneous leishmaniasis and the more dangerous visceral leishmaniasis, which can be fatal.
People can contract leishmaniasis from a bite from an infected sand fly or dog, which researchers warn could pose an increased risk due to the large numbers of animals imported into the US.
Researchers from the University of Iowa, the US Army Veterinary Services, Johns Hopkins University and the CDC warned that the disease could jump from dogs to insects and spread through local insect populations.
The sand flies and parasites are mainly found in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Latin America, but now also Epidemiologists in the US have detected the disease in some Americans who have not traveled outside the country, suggesting that the disease could also be endemic in the US.
The parasites use sand flies as hosts, known in the US as certain species of horseflies, which then bite humans to cause skin ulcers or even organ damage.
Health officials are concerned about a deadly flesh-eating parasite that can be spread through dogs
The parasites use sand flies as hosts, known in the US as certain species of horseflies, which then bite humans and cause an infectious disease called leishmaniasis.
Leishmaniasis results in skin ulcers or even organ damage
The most common form of the disease, suspected to be endemic in the US, cutaneous leishmaniasis, causes a skin infection with oozing sores and open sores.
Visceral leishmaniasis, on the other hand, can cause fever, weight loss, anemia, and swelling of the liver and spleen. If left untreated, it can be fatal.
Once in insects, it is transmitted in the same way as skin-related leishmaniasis, via sandfly bites.
Visceral leishmaniasis contains a related parasite, leishmania infantum, which attacks organs and causes more than 50,000 deaths each year in regions where the parasite thrives, with cases mainly in India, Bangladesh and Sudan, Brazil.
In America, approximately 3,800 cases of visceral leishmaniasis are recorded annually, with a mortality rate of approximately seven percent.
They had skin infections, namely a small bump from a sandfly bite that erupts into ulcerated sores.
Dr. Mary Kamb, a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Division of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria, said USA today: ‘This is a disease that we don’t really think about in the United States. It really is a disease that belongs to other countries.’
Dr. Kamb and her team detected leishmaniasis in a number of tissue samples from patients who had not traveled outside the US.
All patients had skin infections with leishmaniasis, which start as a small bite from a sand fly and develop into ulcerative sores days to weeks later.
Dr Kamb said CNN: ‘People can be asymptomatic and not develop anything, but when people are symptomatic they get sores on their skin and sometimes it starts as a little volcano with a crater in it.’
The sores often develop near where the person was bitten on their body.
The parasite disables nerves in the skin, meaning the sores are generally painless.
However, they can leave scars and be disfiguring, especially if they are on a person’s face.
The majority of skin samples in the CDC study came from Texas – the only US state where doctors are required to report cases of leishmaniasis.
Cases were also reported in southeastern Oklahoma, according to a research review published in 2021.
An antifungal medication called liposomal amphotericin B is used to treat visceral leishmaniasis.
There is no vaccine or preventative medication for humans, with people advised to avoid sand flies through nets and insecticide sprays.
However, there is a vaccine for dogs.
Collars impregnated with insecticides and spot-on treatments that prevent sand fly bites are also effective.