Up until a few years ago, Sanjeet Pahan didn’t consider visiting a doctor for his skin. But by 2020, small pink lesions had started appearing on his feet. Now, the spots, which resemble red grapes in some places and small berries in others, have spread, reaching all the way up to his face…
Kala-azar, also called visceral leishmaniasis or black fever, is one of the most neglected tropical diseases in the world, with more than 1 billion people at risk. It is endemic to more than 83 countries, and people from just seven countries — Brazil, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan — make up 90 percent of the cases…
Although cases of kala-azar have decreased, thanks in part to successful treatment programs, it can be followed by a complication called post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis, or PKDL, which continues to be a threat…
Aside from the connection to kala-azar, experts aren’t sure what causes PKDL. Medicines exist, but they are expensive, difficult to access, and don’t always work…
Over the past decade or so, kala-azar infections have decreased in India, from 9,241 cases and 11 deaths in 2014 to 818 cases and three deaths in 2022. Over that same time period, PKDL cases rose from 421 to 616. The latter disease peaked in 2017, with 1,982 cases…
Both kala-azar and PKDL can also be curbed through prevention. Since the 1990s, the central government of India has attempted to eliminate kala-azar, launching projects like the National Vector Borne Disease Control Program…
An increase of travel to and from regions like the one where Pahan lives may be pushing the disease to new places across the country…
The disease can also be isolating. Young people may be more vulnerable to PKDL compared to other groups…
People in communities like Pahan’s are particularly vulnerable. “There are communities where people have roads, electricity, and water, but then you cross their area and enter into tribal communities, there are kala-azar patients,” said Sarkar…
Helping them will be difficult, he said. As for eradicating PKDL by the decade’s end, he added: “It’s impossible to eliminate the disease.”
