Kirkwood students return from Costa Rica with skin disease

ST. LOUIS -- Three students and a teacher who spent a week adventuring in Costa Rica ca me back with an unwanted souvenir: skin boils caused by a tropical disease.

The four, all from Kirkwood High School, were diagnosed with leishmaniasis, a parasitic infection caused by the bite of a sand fly found in tropical areas, said Dr. Alexis Elward of St. Louis Children's Hospital's Infectious Diseases Division.

Elward said the strain contracted by Meaghan Holley and Cristine Crider, both 17; Matthew Moore, 16; and teacher Tom Holland is not life-threatening. But without treatment it can recur.

The four must now receive daily intravenous treatments.

Holley, Crider, Moore, and Holland were among a group of 24 students and three adults participating in an Outward Bound trip to Costa Rica. They spent a week in late March and early April whitewater rafting, rappelling, and hiking through jungle. They wore insect repellent every day, said Holland, except one day they spent on a sandy beach.

Symptoms include swollen glands and skin ulcers that look like small volcanoes.

More severe strains of the disease found in the Middle East, Africa and India can be fatal.