ISIS blamed for flesh-eating disease spreading among refugees

The ISIS terrorist group has contributed greatly to the outbreak of a flesh-eating disease among refugees by creating squalid living conditions for humans, according to scientists.

"It's a very bad situation. The disease has spread dramatically in Syria, but also into countries like Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey and even into southern Europe with refugees coming in," Dr. Waleed Al-Salem of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine told The Daily Mail.

The flesh-eating tropical disease known as Cutaneous leishmaniasis causes severe scarring, nosebleeds, and difficulties in breathing and swallowing. It can also be fatal when left undiagnosed and untreated. Those who survive the disease live with the stigma brought about by the horrific scars.

The Lebanese Ministry of Health reported about a thousand cases in 2013 from only six the previous year. They traced 96 percent of the cases from the Syrian refugees.

"When people are bitten by a sand-fly — which are tiny and smaller than a mosquito — it can take anything between two to six months to have the infection," Dr. Al-Salem explained, disputing the previous claim made by the Kurdish Red Crescent that the disease was caused by exposure of rotting corpses left by the ISIS militants on the streets.

The scientist added that the disease, parasites, and sand flies were efficiently contained in Syria before the war broke out. However, the living conditions created by the civil war created an ideal environment for the sand flies that caused the disease.

"We need to ring fence them or risk another situation like Ebola out of the conflict zones in West Africa in 2014," Peter Hotez, dean of the US National School of Tropical Medicine, was quoted by Breitbart.

The disease is categorized by the World Health Organization as "neglected."