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The African Sleeping Sickness, otherwise known as African Trypanosomiasis, is a microscopic sized parasite that enters the body through the area where a tsetse fly bites the human. If untreated, this "sickness" is fatal. These flies typically bite during the day and typically live in savanna areas, forests, areas with thick vegetation along rivers and waterholes, and most commonly- throughout bush areas. This allows the disease to be spread from the infected fly into the human where it travels through either the bloodstream or spinal fluid into the brain. There are two types of this disease- East African Tryanosomiasis (Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense) & West African Trypanosomiasis (Trypanosoma brucei gambiense)- each a little different, but mainly only due to the time it takes for symptoms to set in. This disease is typically contracted in Central (and sometimes West) rural areas of Africa.
Here are some of the typical early stage 1 symptoms (when parasites are found in lymphatic and blood system):
Here are some of the typical stage 2 symptoms (when parasites invade nervous system):
This sickness was first occurant throughout the slave trade in the early/mid 1700s. But it was more specifically first discovered (that T. brucei was the cause of this illness in cattle) in 1895.
A pregnant mother, if infected, can sometimes pass it onto her baby. Otherwise, you can get this sickness through sexual ways, blood transfusions, and organ transplants. Most commonly however, people get it from the tseste fly when in rural areas of Africa.
Not all tseste flys are infected, only a small ammount of the total population of them actually carry the disease.
If you think you have it, you can test to check through a skin biopsy of the chancre, a spinal tap, or through blood tests. Once confirmed that you actually do have it, medical treatement should occur right away, depending on each specific persons lab results. Hospitalization is typically required in treatment, as well as sometimes a follow up lumbar puncture every 6 months for two years.
You can get reinfected, you are not immune after you have it once, As well, there are no drugs or vaccines to help prevent this yet.
For the first time in 50+ years, efforts to help control and decrease this disease have really been helping. Numbers have decreased from about 100,000 cases a year in the 1900s to less than a few thousand nowadays.
The article I chose to read and summarize (linked at the bottom) is called
"THE DOCTOR’S WORLD; New Drug for Sleeping Sickness” from The NY Times by Lawrence K. Altman. It is dated July 16th, 1985. Below is a sumary of the information it encloses.
The corkscrew shaped parasite continued infecting brains to an unknown amount of people after not being stopped by standard drugs, due to the poor ability to keep record of the number of people infected during the time this article was written. In 1985, about 35 million Africans were at risk of contracting this parasite. The first new drug in 30 years had been found and when this article was written, had so far cured 97 patients with this disease. The drug is called difluoromethylornithine but is also called DFMO, scientists had even referred to it as the resurrection drug. The struggle was that when the patients felt better they would simply leave the hospital and return to the bush, not allowing follow up to be done. This drug was meant to block the action of key enzymes.
https://www.nytimes.com/1985/07/16/science/the-doctor-s-world-new-drug-for-sleeping-sickness.html?searchResultPosition=1
https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/sleepingsickness/index.html\
https://www.nytimes.com/1985/07/16/science/the-doctor-s-world-new-drug-for-sleeping-sickness.html?searchResultPosition=3
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2270819/#:~:text=In%201895%2C%20the%20Scottish%20pathologist,cattle%20nagana)%20%5B16%5D.
https://www.cfsph.iastate.edu/Factsheets/pdfs/trypanosomiasis_african.pdf
https://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/African_Sleeping_Sickness:_Trypanosome_Invasion_Mechanism
https://dana.org/article/a-wake-up-call-about-sleeping-sickness/
https://www.fao.org/3/x0413e/x0413e02.htm
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.yourgenome.org%2Ffacts%2Fwhat-is-african-sleeping-sickness&psig=AOvVaw0Py38jh0NK87pKW9wfw6zH&ust=1648818407970000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAsQjRxqFwoTCLCX-8bP8PYCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAX
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcnews.com%2Fscience%2Fscience-news%2Ftsetse-fly-genome-decoded-fight-against-african-sleeping-sickness-n89101&psig=AOvVaw2cJqpjOSfzXstnp0M6rRzW&ust=1648826816564000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAsQjRxqFwoTCLiHztrU8PYCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAR
https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/sleepingsickness/treatment.html#:~:text=gambiense%20infection%2C%20is%20available%20in,can%20be%20obtained%20from%20CDC.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=http%3A%2F%2Fproducts.fresenius-kabi.us%2Fproduct-91.html&psig=AOvVaw1_fjh4p9a7SjWaKefvHwfb&ust=1648827396216000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAsQjRxqFwoTCMD-8ffW8PYCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2018%2F11%2F16%2Fhealth%2Fsleeping-sickness-africa-cure.html&psig=AOvVaw3sEYyyvIy1zt-1LFt6fUtm&ust=1648827497412000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAsQjRxqFwoTCKilwKDX8PYCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1832067/#:~:text=Between%20approximately%201900%20and%201920,decline%20of%20the%20epidemic1.