Leishmaniasis

Antimony compounds are the main therapy against all leishmaniasis, including the often fatal version called kala-azar that attacks organs.

Roughly 253 scientists from 21 countries worked for five years to decipher the genetic blueprints of the single-cell parasites that cause sleeping sickness, leishmaniasis and Chagas disease. Experts say the disease-causing protozoa, which affect 500 million people in the tropics and sub-tropics at any one time, look identical under the microscope, but are spread by different flying insects.