medical institutions that research the disease and regularly treat patients. The illness was transmitted by sand flies that swarmed the explorers in stinging clouds.Ībout half the people on the expedition, described in the October issue of National Geographic, have been diagnosed with the illness, which is caused by parasites that break down the skin and can cause weeping, potentially disfiguring sores.įive were so ill that they were sent for treatment at the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health, one of the few U.S.
Members of a successful recent expedition to find a lost city in the Honduran rain forest have returned to the United States with an unwelcome souvenir: infections from the tropical disease leishmaniasis.
