Human African Trypanosomiasis ( Hat )

There are many misconceptions that have been universally accepted mentioned in Curtis Keim’s book Mistaking Africa, many of which are based on biased and incorrect accounts and are extremely offensive. Three important myths are that Africa is a land of cannibals, it is backward and very uncivilized, and that it is one country where everyone and the climate are the same all over. These will be explained, refuted, and the detriment to the people of Africa will be discussed.

Africa became known as the “dark continent” through the Europeans eyes. Not only from the skin color of its inhabitants but also from the vast lands still undiscovered. Due to the Europeans’ view that Africa had a backward sense, they believed it was their responsibility to help. Conflict arose from the creation of a new society resulting in ethnic feuds and imperialism. European imperialistic powers subjugated Africa to strengthen their own economy. Africa’s rich supply of resources such as a large population had extremely detrimental to its economy. Slavery Sentence. The welfare of Africa’s people weakened rapidly from the poor management of the spread of diseases such as HIV/AIDS and Malaria. Africa is the least developed part of the world, given the impact of European imperialism, slavery, and an inability to deal with major diseases.

Though these facts give a positive outlook, with progress comes many setbacks. The informative view of Guinea Worm Disease from this documentary gives a good example of global health. With the concern of health worldwide, some of the most critical factors in global health are the following: the determinants of health, measurement of health

In this episode of “Guns, Germs & Steel”, the audience learns about the European colonization of Africa. Each continent has African and European influence still today, and this episode walks us through how the world sees present-day Africa based on its history. To me, one of the more interesting pieces of Africa’s colonization was how disease affected the people involved.

6) The colonization of Africa created countries riddled with disease. Because areas were colonized, villages and crowded communities were established, eliminating the spread out, mostly disease free, settlements. In Zambia especially, densely populated areas act as a breeding ground for deadly diseases, like malaria.

The scourge was also known as "the poor plague" because of the regular first occurrence in the poorer parts of town. The symptoms were described as: seizures followed by an increase of temperature, with vomiting, headache, dizziness, intolerance to light, pain in the lower abdomen, back and limbs, restlessness, lethargy and delirium. The body temperature varied greatly from 101º-107º but fell two or three degrees on the second or third day. The headache was described as splitting and the deliriousness similar to the DTs (delirium tremens), resulting from severe drunkenness. The eyes became red; the tongue swelled and became covered with a white fur except on the tip. Later the tongue became dry and the fur turned yellow or brown. Constipation was the rule but there might be diarrhea — an even dreadful symptom. 6 a typical symptom in severe cases was that the patient appeared shocked and brainless, staggered and had slurred speech. The patient might die within 24 hours, but more usually death occurred on the second or third day. Recovery was very rare. The plague presented itself in three interconnected types. The bubonic variant (the most common) derives its name from the swellings or buboes that appeared on a victim's neck, armpits or groin. These tumors could range in size from that of an egg to that of an apple. While some survived the agonizing suffering, the appearance of these lesions usually indicated the victim

Many contemporary scholars such as John Iliffe rashly characterize Africa as a hostile environment that induces weak agriculture and small population. Yes, their perception about Africa is sound to some degree because African geography suggests that its environment is less suitable for certain types of harvesting. Also, there are some diseases more prevalent in Africa. However, it is hasty to judge Africa solely based on these features, and such judgment parochially overlooks other characteristics of African environment that enable its inhabitants to live a life that is not at all inferior but quintessentially different from western continents. In contrary to the typical stereotype, Africa contains a rich diversity of plants and foods sources

African Trypanosomiasis- headaches, muscle and joint pain, fevers, malaise, itching of the skin, CNS involvement, personality changes, swollen lymph nodes

One of the devastating diseases that was carried to East Africa was sleeping sickness (Ransford 111). The tsetse fly carries the sleeping sickness parasite, Trypanosoma brucei gambiense, and transmits it through its bite (African Trypanosomiasis). The isolated tribe’s total lack of immunity and the eastern migratory shift increased both the severity and rapidity of this disease for Eastern African regions. For example, the decline in the population of Lukolela from less than 6,000 in 1891 to only a little more than 700 in 1896, is due to this type of disease transference (Ransford 128).

The Europeans brought their guns and wars, yet they also brought something that made their death toll even higher, new diseases. The first ever new disease to come to the new world was smallpox. Smallpox was transferred from the Europeans animals. It infected the natives when they breathed in the virus and it travelled to their lungs and throat. The infection caused blisters to form on the victim’s skin and if they are popped, the virus spreads onto the nearest thing it contacts. This old world disease costs the lives of a myriad of the Native Americans. Despite the casualties from smallpox in the Americas, it did not affect Africa the same way. Scientists and scholars believed smallpox originated in the Tropics of Africa, it was transmitted from cattle to man. Over the many years, the cattle became resistant, thus the Africans were not being as much threat in developing smallpox. The Africans even found vaccines and ways to immunize them from smallpox. A disease that hit hard in Africa, although, and the settlers could not protect themselves from it like the native Africans could. This disease, known as “one of the most virulent diseases on Earth” said by Dr. Jared Diamond, is now the number one killer of African kids under 5. The disease is malaria. Malaria is carried by mosquitoes and a human gets infected when the mosquito bites them, transferring the virus. Africans were savvy. They knew how to avoid it by settling in

Since the beginning of humankind, Africa had always been a difficult continent to colonize. The amount of natural barriers, the rainforest, the climate, and the dry and wet seasons are why Africa wasn’t able to be colonized until the 19th century. The Europeans were first able to colonize Africa in the late 1880’s but, that success didn’t come without many challenges they faced. They had issues with medicine, politics and their economy was failing. In the 1500’s, European colonialists tried to invade Africa in the 1500’s, before being fought off by unified African forces. The Songhai empire and the Mali empire were responsible for the defense against the Europeans. However about 300 years later, the cure to malaria was found in 1832. This drug

When Imperialism came to Africa, Europeans brought new medicines that cured many diseases that were killing many people. Diseases that were once incurable are now curable because of strong medicines that were provided

Malaria or other similar diseases like malaria has been recognized and encountered by humans for more than 4,000 years. Malaria is caused by the genus Plasmodium parasites, which enter the human body and are transmitted to people through the bite of a mosquito infected with the parasite (Q&A, Malaria). Once the parasite enters the human body, the parasites multiply in the liver and then infect red blood cells. The malaria parasite was first discovered on November 6, 1880, by a French army surgeon named Charles Louis Al phonse Laveran. While stationed in

Africa, and what they can learn from other countries to try to control the rapid spread of

About 3.3 billion people, that is about half of the world’s population are at risk of contracting malaria (figure 1). Every year there are 250 million cases of malaria, and nearly 1 million deaths. That amounts to 2,732 deaths per day. Out of those million people that die every year, 800,000 of them are African children under the age of 5. To control malaria three actions need to be taken: insecticides need to be used to decrease the vector population, people have to be educated as to how to prevent the vector from reproducing, and anti-malarial drugs need to be distributed. To understand the vector and what the vector is, scientists had to first discover what the parasite was and how it worked. It was not until the year 1880 that French Physician Charles Laveran discovered that Malaria was caused by a protozoan in the genus Plasmodium (Malaria, 2013)