Infectious diseases
Human African trypanosomiasis: an update
Waking up to the burden of sleeping sickness
Authors:
P. Chinnock
Publisher:
TropIKA.net, 2009
Sleeping sickness (human African trypanosomiasis, HAT) is fatal if left untreated. It is usually transmitted by insects which are found only in Africa known as the tsetse fly. There is no clear agreement as to how many people have HAT, nor a reliable assessment of the extent of the harm it causes. This brief article in TropIKA.net provides an overall assessment of the disease, its burden on African society and potential treatments. The author discusses various articles, authors and literature which have shed greater light on the disease and groups together the most recent findings.
Findings within the literature show that some HAT patients relapse after apparently successful treatment. Clinical guidelines recommend that patients should be followed up and tested for the presence of parasites in lymph, blood or cerebrospinal fluid, which will identify treatment failure or relapse. The author highlights how one concern in the search for new drugs to treat HAT is that, while any new drug should be evaluated for possible toxic effects to the heart, HAT itself may involve some cardiological symptoms. Potential new routes for development of more effective treatment are also discussed.
