Talk:Leishmaniasis

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I own some dogs and live in the sicilian countryside (Iblei) particularly infested with leishmania. Up to 20 years ago the infected dogs died with lots of bleeding wounds. After I discovered Glucantime. But when I was finishing the therapy the insect would sting again and the dog was chronically with the illness. One day I noted that the dogs illnesses regressed when I put salt in the food that I prepared for them. After that I looked at the explanatory notes of the Glucantime medecine and I noted that all the elements were salts: Sodium Sulphite, potassium anhydrous-sulphite, (excipients) and N-metilglucammine antimoniate (active principle). In the latest explanatory notes is clearly stated that 30% of the active principle is made of salt (N-metilglucammine antimoniate). In fact the leishmania protozoan (the leishmania genus of parasitic flagellate, belonging to the trypanosomes and responsible for diseases such as leishmaniasis) transmitted by the fly doesn't find the suitable conditions for reproduction in the animal saltier blood and it could probably also arrive to die. I think the dog's nourishment with a salt presence helps the prevention of leishmania. Someone could ask how much salt you need in the animal nutrition but my experience tells me that the animal can be protected with a quantity of salt identically to the human one. I am looking for other dog owners that are looking for a cheaper ways to treat them.

Please contact me at maurice.carbonaro@gmail.com. Thanks.

Maurice Carbonaro

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I removed from the external links section:

"The all-embracing open-source encyclopedia Wikipedia doesn't have a dedicated page on kala-azar, or visceral leishmaniasis. But who cares? After all, the disease only transforms vast numbers of people in developing countries into walking skeletons carrying bellies bloated by an enlarging liver and spleen. With drugs costing up to US$200 a course, it often goes untreated, causing some 200,000 deaths each year. In the research and development (R&D) chains that lead to drugs, more attention is devoted to silicone breast implants and pills for erectile dysfunction than to the roughly 8,000 orphan diseases. These neglected diseases each touch up to just 2,000 people, but together they affect millions."

The critique is obvious, but the kind author misunderstood that not many contributors to Wikipedia will know much about visceral Leishmaniasis. If there is sufficient interest, I can dip into my textbooks, but I guess our medical contributors tend to focus on the diseases they deal with in daily life... JFW | T@lk 22:58, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 kala-azar 2 Trivia section? 3 Baghdad Boil 4 Anybody want to merge/delete my content? 5 Help me understand something

[edit] kala-azar

I'm not sure why Kala-azar links here. Is Leishmaniasis = Kala-azar? It says here that Kala-azar is a symptom, but the dictionary says it's a disease. I'm confused --Quasipalm 20:14, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

kala azar is the same disease as leishmaniasis, it is simply known by multiple names.--Gozar 22:03, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Some capitalisations of "Kala azar" link to the more specific article "Visceral leishmaniasis" (VL). I'm not sure if this is correct, but i've made them all link to it instead of this article. Please put them back if this is wrong. —Pengo ^{talk · contribs} 05:03, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Kala-azar is the traditional Indian name for visceral leishmaniasis, taken from the blackened skin which is a symptom of the Indian strain (but is not seen in Africa and elsewhere).Dybryd 00:49, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Trivia section?

This disease was mentioned in House episode Cursed when a concerned father surprisingly mentions it as a possible cause for his son's condition. Should a "trivia" section of some sort be added where this could be mentioned? --AlphaEtaPi 04:00, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

probably a little obscure to be making a whole section about--Gozar 04:58, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Baghdad Boil

Should Baghdad boil redirect here too? Lizz612 22:47, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anybody want to merge/delete my content?

I've just put a whole bunch of content over on the visceral leishmaniasis page, not realizing that this main page for the whole disease-family existed. I now see that a lot of it is redundant with the material on this page.

I find this too depressing to do myself, so does somebody else want to check the two versions and decide what should be moved to this page and what should just be deleted? Thanks.

Dybryd 00:49, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Help me understand something

Both of the articles contain the same statements, -- "Results of trials outside of India have been disappointing." -- "There are problems with toxicity (gastrointestinal and renal) as well as the rapid development of resistance."

This makes it seem, upon reading the article, as if the drug is ineffective. In fact, according to the article cited --Jha TK, Sundar S, Thakur CP et al. (1999). "Miltefosine, an oral agent, for the treatment of Indian visceral leishmaniasis". New Engl J Med 341: 1795–800.,-- the conclusion states: "Orally administered miltefosine appears to be an effective treatment for Indian visceral leishmaniasis." "Gastrointestinal side effects were frequent (occurring in 62 percent of patients) but mild to moderate in severity." in the (More, et al, 2003) citation, the NEJM gives an even more glowing testimony; "the initial parasitologic cure rate was 100%" and " Conclusion. Oral miltefosine was safe and ~90% effective in this initial clinical trial of childhood visceral leishmaniasis."

   I've been unable to find any other information on the trials outside of india that were disapointing. I'm not saying that its untrue, but it goes against everything I have read (not a lot)  so far.

here is the summary from the Max Planck Institute for biophysical Chemistry

           Summary:

  1. Miltefosine is the first effective oral remedy against visceral leishmaniasis, a disease that often results in death.
  2. The healing process is practically complete in four weeks with a success rate of 98%.
  3. Success of the treatment does not depend on whether the patients are resistant to the conventional pentostam therapy. The healing process is already noticeable after three days: the fever drops and the patient regains strength.
  4. The side-effects are neglectable.
  5. Epidemics would be controllable with this oral treatment method.
  6. The active substance has a simple chemical structure and is producible in tonnes. It is cheap and can be stored indefinitely between 0 and 40 deg Celsius.
  7. 5.6 tonnes of miltefosine would be needed annually on the basis of about two million new infections per year and a necessary amount of about 2.8 g miltefosine per patient. 

granted, this information is from 2000. Perhaps your information is more current?