A DEADLY and disfiguring disease could be prevented by an ingenious vaccine
that attacks the spit of sandflies, rather than the parasites their saliva
carries.
In tropical and desert regions around the world, over a million people a year
develop leishmaniasis after being bitten by sandflies infected with the
single-celled Leishmania parasite. The symptoms range from fevers, skin and
throat ulcers to disfigurement and death. In the 1990s, 100,000 people died
during one epidemic in Sudan.
Yet there are still no vaccines available against Leishmania. A
conventional vaccine has had only modest success in human trials, and medical
researchers…
