African Sleeping Sickness

African sleeping sickness is the common name for human African trypanosomiasis. The disease is parasitic in origin and, if left untreated, can result in the death of the person infected. Four documented major outbreaks of sleeping sickness have been recorded in 1896, 1920, 1970 and the most recent in 2008.

African sleeping sickness is transmitted by Tsetse flies, not genetics like fatal familial insomnia.

According to the World Health Organization, the major epidemics of African sleeping sickness were documented primarily in the sub-Saharan portions of Africa. The country of Uganda is the hardest hit on record followed by the Congo Basin. Mobile teams helped control the outbreak in 1920 when they screened the ‘at risk’ population to identify those infected.

The disease is caused by a parasite called Trypanosome brucei. The protozoa, transmitted by the bite of tsetse fly, works their way through a victim’s bloodstream. According to the World Health Organization, the disease is endemic in portions of sub-Saharan Africa with more than 50 million people infected with the disease in some form.

A bite from a tsetse fly is all that’s needed to transmit the protozoa, but the parasite’s life cycle in a person is very distinct. When the protozoa begin a path through the blood stream, they infects the lymph systems as well. Lymph nodes will swell up along the back and the neck. The swollen lymph nodes are one of the earliest warning signs of infection. A physician should be contacted immediately and treatment sought.

If the disease is not treated, the parasitical infection can cause anemia, cardiac disease, kidney disease and endocrine failure. Once the disease achieves the second stage, passing the blood brain barrier, confusion, sleep problems and fatigue become more pronounced. The disease will eventually lead to coma and death if not treated.

The disease is transmittable from mother to child as the protozoa will cross the placenta and infect the fetus. Pre-natal infection can lead to stillbirth and late term miscarriage. Accidental infections can occur in laboratory settings through mishandling of infected blood.

Early treatments required an arsenic-based pharmaceutical that would kill the protozoa, but with one serious side-effect: the medication caused blindness. Modern treatments seek to prevent the spread of the protozoa, terminate the infection in a person and avoid serious side-effects such as blindness. Rigid screening processes seemed to have nearly eliminated the disease in many African countries, but relaxed measures have led to endemic surges since 1965. According to the World Health Organization, African sleeping sickness is responsible for 40,000 deaths per year in Africa.

Tourists planning vacations to sub-Saharan portions of Africa are warned about possible transmission of the disease through the bite of the tsetse fly. While the disease is not air borne, the very real fear of parasites and death causes many tourists to have him or herself screened upon returning home from areas where infection is possible. Despite being mentioned on an episode of House, no recorded cases of African trypanosomiasis have been reportedly transmitted via sexual contact.

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