It is endemic in most of Israel and the West Bank. Several projects at the Hebrew University Faculty of Medicine's Kuvin Center for the Study of Infectious and Tropical Diseases comprise a long-term, comprehensive study of leishmaniasis. Once infected, these animals can infect healthy sand flies that bite them, thus spreading the disease. The sand flies carry the disease directly to humans.
Visceral leishmaniasis is much more serious and affects children as well as adults.
It attacks the spleen, bone marrow, and liver. Without treatment, which is both toxic and expensive, the illness is generally fatal to humans and dogs. But since most of the reported cases involved either complications of the disease or children suffering lesions many more cases may go unreported. The DFG leishmaniasis research project at the Kuvin Center embraces both laboratory and field research and includes immunology studies, diagnostics, epidemiology, and DNA studies of the sand fly species that carry the parasite. In addition, each one of the project's module's strengthens the capacity for carrying out research at the Palestinian universities.