Baghdad Boil

Ok, here's something I didn't know much about until this evening, the so-called "Baghdad Boil." It's actually called leishmaniasis and can be potentially very serious. It's caused by the bite of a sand fly found in the Middle East and has affected many hundreds of US service members.

Here is a brief explanation from the Mayo Clinic, but what I saw tonight didn't look nearly as bad as the picture on that page or any of the other examples I found on the internet.

This is an article about the condition as it affected the first few rotations of troops home from Iraq by early 2004.

This page is from the U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine (USCHPPM) and has several informative links on the subject. If you're a wiki-nerd like me, here's the direct link to wikipedia article on leishmaniasis.

Please pray for our men and women who have these nasty sores on their hands and faces. It's painful, takes a long time to heal, and, in the case of one version of disease, can be very serious.