A parasite called "Leishmaniasis" Creates Huge Open Wound on a Young Man's Face

After a 6-months odyssey across South America, newly engaged Adam Spencer has returned home to Veneta, Oregon with a massive wound across his face and it seems the medicines he's taking are powerless to stop it.

Adam and Shalynn in visit infectious disease specialist Dr. William Booth of Samaritan infectious disease in Corvallis Oregon, Adam presented with a disfiguring sore on his cheek there are a number of infections that could have been with the fact that Adam had this rather dramatically lesion on his cheek and he had spent time in South America, the doctor think that this could be cutaneous leishmaniasis, cutaneous leishmaniasis is a disease caused by an organism called leash mania, leash mania is a single-celled parasite that enters the body through the skin the body sends immune cells to attack the parasite but the parasites fight back penetrating the immune cells feeding off of them and then reproducing inside them as the parasites multiply they devastate the surrounding tissue causing hideous sores on the skin.

Dr. Booth continues to examine Adam and encounters something disconcerting, Adam also have a swollen lymph node on the right side of his neck not too far from the skin sore and that itself could indicate that this infection was spreading the doctor looked in Adam’s throat and he thought Adam might have mucocutaneous leishmaniasis, mucocutaneous leishmaniasis is a rare form of the disease that destroys the soft tissue of the mouth nose and throat, mucocutaneous leishmaniasis can be very disfiguring and when it's not treated could be deadly.

Source: YouTube by Animal Planet