Sand flies infect U.S. forces with parasite that leaves them with 'Baghdad Boil'

[unhappycamper]

Sand flies infect U.S. forces with parasite that leaves them with 'Baghdad Boil'
By Eric Athas
Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Mason Alsaleh was sound asleep when he was attacked at a U.S. Army outpost in northwest Iraq.

What happened that August night last year left the 48-year-old interpreter disfigured and unable to sleep, his mind muddled with paranoia, his temper short.

But Alsaleh's injuries -- including what look today like third-degree burns on his neck and arm -- weren't caused by gunfire or an explosion. His enemy that night was a tiny insect that injected a flesh-eating parasite into his skin.

Alsaleh, a Jordanian-born military contractor who works for Falls Church-based Global Linguist Solutions, is a victim of leishmaniasis, a disease carried by sand flies that is sometimes called Baghdad Boil. He remembers that when he first got to his mattress in an old building on a contingency base, it was covered in sand flies. He brushed them away.

~snip~

The disease, which the World Health Organization says affects 12 million people worldwide, received considerable media and political attention in 2003 during the U.S. invasion of Iraq, when hundreds of soldiers began to spot red bumps on their skin that swelled for weeks before rupturing into seeping wounds. The number of cases dropped to a handful a month by last year, but as more U.S. troops make their way into Afghanistan, doctors and military personnel are warning that the number of cases could tick back up.

[dipsydoodle]

1. Nasty little fuckers

They has similar problems on the Mediteranean beaches years ago. Affect dogs too and there was a note recently of the sheer number of dogs now running loose in Iraq.

[SpiralHawk]

2. Biblical-scale Bhagdad Boil backbite on the Latter Day Babylon Crudesaders?

Yikes...and to think that our honorable sons and daughters in uniform were needlessly sent on this Oil Crudesade by a lying cabal of AWOL republicon chickenhawk oil grubbers who feverishly ladled out the financial gravy to their Mercenary RepliCorps.

Totally Diabolical.

[democrank]

3. Awful.....

[lunatica]

4. This is what it looks like