Horrible, horrible news for these people and all of us as Western so-called leadership watch, play golf and have meetings.
A disfiguring tropical disease that had been contained to Syria has now spread across the Middle East as millions are displaced from the war-torn region.
Cutaneous leishmaniasis is a parasitic disease spread by bites from infected sand flies.It can lead to severe scarring, often on the face, and regularly goes undiagnosed and untreated.
The disease had been contained to Syria, particularly to regions under ISIS control such as Raqqa, Deir al-Zour and Hasakah.
The civil war has devastated the country’s medical facilities, seen thousands of health workers killed and hospitals destroyed.
Along with the chronic lack of water and bombed out buildings, this created a ripe breeding ground for the sand flies and allowed the disease to thrive.
It had previously been claimed by the Kurdish Red Crescent that the spread of the disease had also been caused by ISIS dumping rotting corpses on the streets. This has been refuted by the scientists at the School of Tropical Medicines.As more than four million Syrians have fled the region, the disease has now moved into its neighboring countries of Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan.
Between 2000 and 2012, there were only six reported cases of the disease in Lebanon.
But in 2013 alone there were 1,033 cases reported, of which 96 per cent occurred among the displaced Syrian refugees, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health.
Turkey, Jordan, Easter Libya and Yemen have also reported hundreds of cases.With Yeminis migrating to Saudi Arabia, the fear is the disease might spread there too. There could even be refugees with the disease who have reached Europe…
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