Leishmaniasis afflicts hundreds in Syria’s Tel Tamr
TEL TAMR, Syria (North Press) – Hanouf Ibrahim, a nurse supervising the treatment of leishmaniasis cases at Martyr Legerin Hospital in the town of Tel Tamr, northeastern Syria, said that hundreds of residents of the area who live on the banks of the Khabur River suffer from leishmaniasis due to the spread of swamps.
The hospital administration has set Sunday and Wednesday for leishmaniasis patients, to provide them with free doses of treatment.
Ibrahim pointed out that the sand fly that causes leishmaniasis lives and reproduces in areas where swamps and dirt are spread, so this fly spreads widely along the Khabur River banks due to the stagnant water after the water was cut off from Turkey.
“Most of the cases that we received live in villages located around Khabur River,” she added.
About six years ago, the Khabur River turned into swamps and a place for sewage collection as a result of Turkey’s seizure of water, which doctors see as a main factor behind the disease’s spread.
Despite the spread of informative posters for the prevention of leishmaniasis in all public places in the town, ignorance and neglect in applying preventative methods are among the other most prominent reasons for the widespread spread of leishmaniasis in the region, according to administrators at Martyr Legerin Hospital.
Ibrahim stated that the number of people infected with leishmaniasis exceeded 400 in the Tel Tamr area, most of them children.
The nurse expected that the number of infected people would increase even more during the coming period due to the lack of knowledge of the nature of the disease because the symptoms appear gradually.