African trypanosomiasis overview

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Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]; Associate Editor(s)-In-Chief: Pilar Almonacid

Overview

Sleeping sickness or African trypanosomiasis is a parasitic disease in people and animals, caused by protozoa of genus Trypanosoma and transmitted by the tsetse fly. The disease is endemic in certain regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, covering about 36 countries and 60 million people. It is estimated that 50,000 to 70,000 people are currently infected, the number having declined somewhat in recent years. The condition has been present in Africa since at least the 14th century, and probably for thousands of years before that. The causative agent and vector were not identified until 1902–1903 by Sir David Bruce, and the differentiation between protozoa was not made until 1910. The first effective treatment, Atoxyl, an arsenic based drug developed by Paul Ehrlich and Kiyoshi Shiga was introduced in 1910 but blindness was a serious side effect. Numerous drugs designed to treat the disease have been introduced since then. There have been three severe epidemics in Africa over the last century: one between 1896 and 1906, mostly in Uganda and the Congo Basin, one in 1920 in several African countries, and one that began in 1970 and is still in progress. The 1920 epidemic was arrested due to mobile teams systematically screening millions of people at risk. The disease had practically disappeared between 1960 and 1965. After that success, screening and effective surveillance were relaxed and the disease has reappeared in endemic form in several foci over the last thirty years. There are two types of African trypanosomiasis; each is named for the region of Africa in which they are found:

• East african trypanosomiasis
• West african trypanosomiasis

Also known as: Sleeping Sickness