pinkeye
12-05-2003, 01:58 PM
Skin lesions afflict troops in Iraq
Fri Dec 5, 6:35 AM ET Add Top Stories - USATODAY.com to My Yahoo!
By Anita Manning, USA TODAY
Nearly 150 U.S. soldiers in Iraq (news - web sites) have been diagnosed with a parasitic skin disease, and hundreds more could unknowingly be infected, doctors will report Friday.
Doctors fear that soldiers returning from the front might consult doctors in the USA who have never seen the disease. Complicating matters: It has an incubation period of six months, on average, so a person infected in September may not show symptoms until March. Also, the best drug to treat it is not licensed in the USA.
Leishmaniasis (LEASH-man-EYE-uh-sis), which soldiers call 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 and can be disfiguring, doctors say.
So far, 148 soldiers have confirmed cases, but hundreds more are expected, says entomologist and Army Lt. Col. Russell Coleman, who spent 10 months in Iraq with the 520th Theater Army Medical Laboratory. Coleman was to report the outbreak Friday to the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, which is 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 repellants 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, based on the number of bites seen and tests that show about one out of 70 sand flies carries the bug.
Three people recently stationed in Afghanistan (news - web sites) have been infected, says Glenn Wortmann, a physician at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. Because soldiers in Afghanistan are not sleeping outside, they're less likely to be exposed, he says.
Doctors are concerned that soldiers coming home may be harboring the parasite without knowing it. Leishmaniasis is rare in the USA, and American doctors may not recognize it, Wortmann says.
All affected soldiers are being sent to Walter Reed to be treated with the drug Pentosam for up to 20 days. Though used worldwide for nearly 50 years, the drug is not licensed in the USA, Wortmann says. If civilians are affected, their doctors will have to get the medication through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites).
Fri Dec 5, 6:35 AM ET Add Top Stories - USATODAY.com to My Yahoo!
By Anita Manning, USA TODAY
Nearly 150 U.S. soldiers in Iraq (news - web sites) have been diagnosed with a parasitic skin disease, and hundreds more could unknowingly be infected, doctors will report Friday.
Doctors fear that soldiers returning from the front might consult doctors in the USA who have never seen the disease. Complicating matters: It has an incubation period of six months, on average, so a person infected in September may not show symptoms until March. Also, the best drug to treat it is not licensed in the USA.
Leishmaniasis (LEASH-man-EYE-uh-sis), which soldiers call 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 and can be disfiguring, doctors say.
So far, 148 soldiers have confirmed cases, but hundreds more are expected, says entomologist and Army Lt. Col. Russell Coleman, who spent 10 months in Iraq with the 520th Theater Army Medical Laboratory. Coleman was to report the outbreak Friday to the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, which is 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 repellants 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, based on the number of bites seen and tests that show about one out of 70 sand flies carries the bug.
Three people recently stationed in Afghanistan (news - web sites) have been infected, says Glenn Wortmann, a physician at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. Because soldiers in Afghanistan are not sleeping outside, they're less likely to be exposed, he says.
Doctors are concerned that soldiers coming home may be harboring the parasite without knowing it. Leishmaniasis is rare in the USA, and American doctors may not recognize it, Wortmann says.
All affected soldiers are being sent to Walter Reed to be treated with the drug Pentosam for up to 20 days. Though used worldwide for nearly 50 years, the drug is not licensed in the USA, Wortmann says. If civilians are affected, their doctors will have to get the medication through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites).