What seems like a typical case of malaria — with symptoms such as fever, weight loss, fatigue, and an enlarged spleen — often misleads both patients and medics, delaying accurate diagnosis and treatment..

But hidden beneath this clinical disguise is leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease that’s slowly ravaging parts of Kenya’s arid and semi-arid counties — largely unnoticed, underfunded, and dangerously underestimated.

This deadly yet neglected disease continues to afflict thousands, quietly claiming lives in communities already battling poverty, hunger, and limited access to health care.