Kala azar is treatable by a daily injection of pentavalent antimonials for 30 days but early diagnosis makes the difference.
Symptoms include fever or acute malnutrition, and patients are often described as "wasting away." Nine out of 10 patients with
kala azar will die if they do not receive treatment, according to Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
Kala Azar - a Hindi word meaning "Black Death" - erupted during Sudan's two-decade civil war that ended in 2005 and killed more people than bullets and bombs.
"We suspect that the number of
kala azar patients reaching clinics in some areas is just the tip of the iceberg," said Dr David Kidinda, MSF medical coordinator for southern Sudan.
Fatal, if left untreated,
Kala Azar is transmitted by the bite of an infected sand fly.
Hematological changes in
kala azar: a study of 82 Iraqi patients.
These cases appeared to represent a mild form of visceral disease and did not progress to the more severe form of
kala azar.
soldiers with gunshot, blast and shrapnel wounds, while 600 or so "cold" cases - civilians with malaria, sleeping sickness, pneumonia, TB, AIDS, jaundice and
kala azar, all complicated by chronic dysentery and the absence of medicines and food - lay on the floor.
We have to work for eliminating diseases like measles, leprosy,
Kala Azar and mosquito-borne diseases from the nation," he added.