Mob. 0911388835 EDITORIAL Podoconiosis: let Ethiopia lead the way

filarial elephantiasis) is better described in Ethiopia then anywhere else in the world. EW Price's elegant investigations through the 1970s and 1980s described the epidemiology (1), ecology (2), pathology (3) and natural history (4) of podoconiosis among Ethiopian patients, and mapped the condition across tropical Africa (5-7). The Addis Ababa-based leprologist estimated 5 % prevalence of the disease among subsistence farmers who live and work barefoot on the irritant red soil that covers approximately 18 % of the surface area of Ethiopia (1-2). Histopathology indicates that colloid-sized silicate particles enter through the skin, are taken up into macrophages in th