Soldiers in Iraq coming down with parasitic disease

From Miami, Fla., at a meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene

Hundreds of soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan have contracted leishmaniasis, a parasite-borne infection spread by sand flies, according to military physicians.

Symptoms usually are limited to skin ulcers, but two soldiers serving in each conflict have come down with a potentially lethal form of leishmaniasis that attacks internal organs, reports Otha Myles of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.