Re: NEWS: North Texas leishmaniasis outbreak

Good grief. I wonder why we haven't heard of more cases. I'm about 100 miles south of Dallas; and they said it was moving north. There's all kinds of critters here in the hill country (around Austin); but I haven't seen sand flies. There are these little black ants that make nasty bites. Also army ants. Yesterday, a tiny black ant, now departed, bit me on my hand. Today, it is a raised pimple, hard, and itches; so I know they have toxins. They also have cell phones. They crawl on my feet, when I'm hot, tired, and mowing the lawn. Then they call each other and say, "bite". No warning from any single one; so I can brush them off. They have to do it all at once. Then, I have these bites for at least a week.

The article says, "These sores usually last for 6 to 12 months and because they are often mistaken for a staph infection, patients may have been given multiple courses of standard antibiotics without success." This is disturbing.