Nobody wants to get bitten by a sandfly and catch a terrible disease with a daunting name – visceral leishmaniasis.
It can cause fever, weight loss, enlargement of the spleen and liver, and anemia. If untreated, VL as it is called for short, is almost always fatal. It’s one of three types of leishmaniases spread by the protozoan parasite, Leishmania. And definitely the worst.
“If you don’t get the treatment, you’re usually going to die from this,” says Dr. Fabiana Alves, director of the leishmaniasis cluster at the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative.
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