Baladi News – (Ahmad al-Ali)
Due to the accumulation of garbage, lack of medication, and the absence of organizations concerned with public health and fighting epidemics, Leishmaniasis has spread widely among the civilians of Hama northern and western country sides.
Abdel Halim Bakour, the person in charge of vaccination at the medical point of Kafr Zita city, attributed the disease to “the environmental pollution and the accumulation of rubbish that is not destroyed in garbage dumps, which attracts insects and flies causing health problems and several diseases.”
Bakkour stated to Baladi News that an average of 400 cases from northern Hama and southern Idlib are received at the medical point on a weekly basis, adding that the existence of contaminated swamps due to the destruction of sewage networks supports the spread of the disease.
The speaker clarified that the disease is transmitted to humans when they are bitten by sand flies. A bite causes a small red blister that soon takes a volcanic shape and expands unless it is treated.
Indicating that the treatment takes one year, Bakkour emphasized that the medical point suffers a lot to provide medications that have been scarce due to the lack of support by international health organizations that have also failed to spray houses and garbage dumps with pesticides.