Ben Fogle

Ben has finished treatment for Leishmaniasis and has been given the all clear by a number of doctors to head south to Antarctica with Team Qinetiq. The team leave Cape Town for Novo in mid December and the race will begin at the end of the month. You can follow all the action on the teams website www.teamqinetiq.com and the boys will also send weekly dispatches back to the Weekend section of the Daily Telegraph www.telegraph.co.uk every Saturday. A BBC team, led by Alexis Giradet and Camerman Keith Schofield will also be on the snow filming all the excitement for the series, On Thin Ice which will be broadcast in the new year.

Ben would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

The third part of the hit series will be on BBC 2 at 18.30 every evening from 1st January 2009. The series involves a journey from the Equator in Ecaudor to the Tropic of Capricorn in Chile. Ben helps teams of unsung hero’s , from Fireman and doctors to Paralympic athletes and Naval Officers, across some of the world’s toughest environments

Ben Fogle has started treatment for Leishmaniasis Vianna, a rather unpleasant skin eating parasite passed by the bite of a sand fly. Ben contracted the parasite while filming in Peru.

Ben currently has a deep lesion an inch in diameter on his arm however Mucocutaneous leishmaniasis produces destructive and disfiguring lesions of the face and left untreated can lead to death.

Mucocutaneous leishmaniasis is treated with a thirty day course of toxic pentavalent antimonials in high dose administered daily by IV infusion. As pentavalent is toxic and classified as a ‘poison’ side effects included aching, arthralgia, fatigue, gastrointestinal upset, elevation of amylase, lipase, and liver enzyme levels, leukopenia, anemia, and electrocardiographic abnormalities. The treatment can be traumatic to the patient, and many are hospitalised for the duration.

Ben is responding well to the course of medication which he is receiving daily by a team of experts at the University College Hospital.

Ben’s health is being monitored closely by a team of doctors and is undergoing a full medical, incluiding ECG’s and blood tests every other day.

‘I am feeling frustrated, but reassured that I am in expert hands, which is more than can be said for the 12 million people who also suffer leishmania in South America and Africa each year, many of whom sadly die’.

‘While the treatment is unpleasant, I am reassured that it has a high success rate and would like to thank all the NHS staff at UCH for their kind, professional care and help especially in these first few difficult days of treatment’.

‘I would like to thank everyone for their kind thoughts and reassure everyone that apart from the rather large hole in one arm and the canula in the other, I am feeling optimistic and looking forward to the completion of the course and heading to Antarctica which I am relieved to say has no skin eating parasites’.

Ben, James Cracknell and Ed Coats have been training in the Plaine Morte Glacier of Crans Montana with trainer Bernie Shrosbree. The team endured sleep deprivation, hunger and crevaces as they trained at 3000 metres.

BBC 2 are making a six part documentary following Team Qinetiq in their epic race across Antarctica to the South Pole. Film crews have been following the pair for over a year as they prepare for the toughest challenge of their lives and follow the pair as they train in Norway, Austria, and LA. The series will be shown in the new year.