51�Թ�

It is more than 100 years3 since drugs based on the chemical element antimony4 were first used to treat visceral leishmaniasis, also known as black fever or kala-azar.

In just over a decade, the group has earned approval for six treatments, tackling sleeping sickness, malaria, Chagas' disease and a form of leishmaniasis called kala-azar.

This woman’s rash is symptomatic of kala-azar, a parasitic disease spread by sandfly bites in the tropics.

Southern Sudan has reported recurrent outbreaks of visceral leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease also known as kala-azar, with some 6,363 cases and 303 deaths recorded in the past year, the WHO said last week.

Conventional treatments for the condition, also known as kala-azar, take much longer and have a greater risk of side effects.