WHO reports outbreak of leishmaniasis

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has reported an outbreak of leishmaniasis, a disfiguring skin disease, in the tribal rim of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan, with about 5,000 cases identified so far, a WHO spokeswoman told IRIN on Wednesday. "The WHO is providing the medicine necessary to treat the outbreak," Lori Hieber-Girardet told IRIN, adding that the first half of a consignment of the relevant medicines were already here and the second half would arrive in the first week of March. The medicine is not available locally. A WHO statement issued in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on Wednesday, said 5,000 cases of cutaneous leishmaniasis were reported in the Kurram agency and nearby areas in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan, a country where this disease is uncommon, although it is widespread in neighbouring Afghanistan. Hieber-Girardet said there had also been cases of leishmaniasis reported in the southern Sindh Province. "We are investigating these cases - we won't call them an outbreak," she added. The WHO statement said the most affected group in the Kurram agency were children below the age of 15. "The epidemiological pattern suggests anthroponotic transmission [person to person] through the sandfly vector, with no animals involved," the statement added. Cutaneous leishmaniasis can produce large numbers of skin ulcers - as many as 200 in some cases - on exposed parts of the body, such as face, arms and legs, causing serious disability and leaving the patient permanently scarred.