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African Sleeping Sickness

Two subspecies: T. b. gambiense (West African form)
T. b. rhodesiense (East African form)

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Early Stage:
Pain in the joints and muscles along with sporadic fever, fatigue, swollen lymph nodes, and severe headaches.

Late Stage:
Begins to affect the central nervous system causing daytime drowsiness and nocturnal insomnia. It also results in motor, sensory, and neurological disturbances, including hallucinations.

The West African form is more of a chronic infection and may take years to reach the brain.
The East African form is acute and usually gets to the brain in three to four weeks with death resulting in the following months.

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The best prevention is to avoid these regions of Africa if at all possible. When in these regions you should wear long sleeve, preferably thick, shirts and pants. Avoid wearing bright and dark colored articles as tsetse flies are more attracted to those colors. Always use insect repellants. As a whole, the areas that are greatly affected can limit the population of the flies by insecticides, trapping, and destroying the shelters and breed grounds of the vectors.

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Trypanosoma brucei is geographically restricted to Africa. The only people that can contract African sleeping sickness are travelers or indigenous people that inhabit the area. The parasite has a biphasic lifestyle alternating between vertebrate and insect. It spreads through the bite of an infected, blood sucking tsetse fly. Trypomastigotes produced in the stomach of the insect enter by way of saliva into the wound. The bite area becomes known as a chancre.

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Choice of therapy depends on the infecting subspecies of the parasite and on the disease stage. Chemotherapy is successful if the pathogen has not involved the nervous system yet. If the infection has spread to the brain, it must be treated with highly toxic drugs, such as melarsoprol and suramin. There is also a less toxic drug called eflornathine. The WHO and certain drug companies do their part to ensure anyone infected with this disease can receive these drugs.