Skin lesions afflict troops in Iraq

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WITH THEM AND THEIR DOCTOR HERE STATESIDE.

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: Skin lesions afflict troops in Iraq

 

 

>

> Skin lesions afflict troops in Iraq

> Fri Dec 5, 6:35 AM ET

> By Anita Manning, USA TODAY

>

> Nearly 150 U.S. soldiers in Iraq

>

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> 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

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> 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

>

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> sites).

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/12058219

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