Leishmaniases in Afghanistan.

The people of Afghanistan have a new threat, less visible than bombs, making its way through their country. Leishmaniases, a group of parasitic diseases transmitted to humans primarily through sandflies, affect some 12 million people worldwide. But its most common form-cutaneous leishmaniasis-occurs primarily in Afghanistan. About 200,000 Afghans, 67,500 of whom live in Kabul, currently have the disease. Cutaneous leishmaniasis, which produces large numbers of skin ulcers-sometimes as many as 200-on exposed body parts such as the face, arms, and legs, can lead to disfigurement and become debilitating.

With the help of a $250,000 grant from the Belgian government, the World Health Organization is providing medications and more than 30,000 insecticide-treated bed nets to the inhabitants of Kabul. If the program proves successful, it will be replicated in other Afghan cities.

In Canada, bacterial infection proves difficile.

Clostridium difficile, recognized as one of the most significant causes of infectious diarrhea in patients hospitalized in developed countries, has been responsible for more than 100 deaths in Canada over the past 18 months. According to a study in the August 31 issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Sherbrooke in Quebec, the incidence of C. difficile-associated diarrhea rose from 35.6 per 100,000 population in 1991 to 156.3 in 2003; among older adults, it increased from 102 per 100,000 population to 866.5. The study's author attributes the rise to increases in the bacterium's virulence (caused by antibiotic resistance), less-than-ideal hygiene at the hospital, and an aging population.