A team of dermatologists and dermatopathologists at UT Southwestern Medical Center has identified nine North Texas cases of an infectious skin disease common in South America, Mexico and in the Middle East, where it is sometimes referred to as a "Baghdad boil."
Numerous cases of the disease, called leishmaniasis, have been reported in troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. But for the first time, cases of this dangerous infection are appearing in North Texas in patients who have not traveled to endemic areas.
The infection causes nonhealing sores that can be the size of a half-dollar or larger and that look like boils. These sores usually last for 6 to 12 months and because they are often mistaken for a staph infection, patients may have been given multiple courses of standard antibiotics without success.