Symptoms And Treatment Of The African Sleeping Sickness

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).

Deadly insects are abundant in africa and kill people daily. The tsetse fly can cause sleeping

Our plan is to run blood tests on individuals who exhibit symptoms of FSGS to confirm if they express the APOL1 gene. The individuals whose blood we use, since we have to take both likelihood of affliction and ancestry into consideration, will be from people who are of West African descent. In order to confirm if the individual expresses the APOL1 gene, we will first take the individual’s blood sample, large enough to have a detectable amount of HDL cholesterol (potentially formed into an APOL1-HDL complex). We will then acquire a sample of the parasite. The parasite will be acquired by gathering the various species of Tsetse flies which serve as vectors for trypanosomes in West Africa. We can then cultivate a live axenic sample of

The article “Flies’ Feet Can Spread Bacteria” explains how Pathogens and Bacteria can be spread by flies’. Scientists experimented on houseflies and blowflies in which their laboratory experiments prove that flies can pick up bacteria on their legs and then deposit the microbial bacteria elsewhere. In addition, many scientists believe that flies can contribute to the rapid transmission of pathogens and outbreak situations. In other words, flies may be associated with the transfer of bacteria in outbreaks of diseases. These flies mostly stay around places with trash and sewage. For example, many of the test flies were in Brazil where the acquired bacteria from sewage and transferred to other locations. The flies’ legs are the most crucial factor

On December 26, 2013, in a small village in Guinea, a anomalous disease began spreading. An 18-month-old boy fell victim to the illness characterized by fever, black stools, and vomiting and would soon die from it. The boy is said to have contracted the disease from infected bats that were closer to human settlements due to deforestation. By January 2014, several members of the boy’s family and those who had helped them had developed similar symptoms resulting in death. Soon after, the disease had spread to those who had attended funerals or took care of ill relatives causing this pattern of exposure continued. An alert on January 24th was raised when the head of the Meliandou health post informed district health officials of cases of severe diarrhoea with a fatal outcome. An investigation was setup where a team of health officials found what

Annually, 200 million malaria cases are contracted and of these, 90% occur in Sub-Saharan Africa. Approximately one million people die annually, making plasmodium falciparum the most deadly parasitic disease. Contraction of plasmodium falciparum begins when a female Anopheles mosquito injects sporozoites, an early form of plasmodium falciparum, into the host. This sporozite is then transported to the human liver where it undergoes asexual reproduction producing merozoites. The merozoites invade other liver cells and enter the host’s bloodstream, where they invade erythrocyte. After the infection of the erythrocyte, the merozoite is transformed into a trophozoite, which then begins asexual reproduction near the nucleus to form a schizont in the erythrocytic cell. The schizont then asexually reproduces to produce mononucleated merozoites. When the erythrocytic cell ruptures due to the 3,000-4,000 merozoites produced, symptoms of fever and chills are induced within the host. This life cycle is extremely damaging to children; persons under the age of 5 account for 86% of malaria fatalities. Malaria has other characteristic effects, such as yellowing of the skin/eyes (jaundice), sweating, vomiting, weakness, and nausea. Current mortality rates in Africa are 9.33% per 1000 children, which represent 28.2% of all fatalities for those under five. The story changes dramatically as the host

Chagas disease is caused by the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, and about 7 million of people are infected in the endemic area of Latin America. Was discovered in 1909 by the Brazilian physician Carlos Chagas, and the infection occurs mainly by contact with de feces or urine of infected triatomine bugs, but there are other infection routes such as: congenital, transfusions, transplants and contaminated food. The Chagas disease has two stages, an acute and a chronic phase, in the acute stage the parasite can be found in the circulating blood and may be mild or asymptomatic. In the chronic phase, the parasites are in the heart and digestive muscles, most of infected people never develop Chagas-related, but a parcel of the infected suffer

Elephantiasis is a neglected tropical disease. Infection occurs when filarial parasites are transmitted to humans through mosquitoes. The mosquito grows into a adult worm and the worm lives in the lymphatic system. It is usually acquired in childhood causing hidden damage to the lymphatic system. There are 8 filariasis worms known to affect humans and these can be divided according to the body area they affect.

East African Trypanosomiasis, better known as the sleeping sickness, is when a tsetse fly bites you and you get infected. The bite is painful and will turn into a red sore or in more serious cases a chancre. Tsetse flies feed on animals then they go and bite humans causing the disease. Some symptoms are fever, extreme fatigue, joint pains and headaches. Some people will experience personality changes and neurological problems. The symptoms will start to occur within one to three weeks prior to the bite. If this disease isn't treated death will occur within months. The fly bites during daylight and usually in woodland and savannah areas. People who live in rural areas have a much higher risk of getting bite by a tsetse fly. There is no way to prevent the bite. However there is treatment. This is a global issue in South Sudan, Africa. The sleeping sickness was first reported in South Sudan in 1908. East African Trypanosomiasis has been an issue for the past century.

It is the main reservoir for wild animals and cattle. The Trypanosomiasis brucei gambiense is the main reservoir for humans, but it can also be found in pigs and other animals. Sleeping sickness threatens millions of people in 36 countries in sub-Sahara Africa. During epidemic periods, occurrences reach 50% in many villages in Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan. There are 98% reported cases in 24 countries of T.b gambiense and T.b rhodesiense is found in 13 countries, in eastern and southern Africa. Currently, there are under 2% reported cases and it causes severe

Protozoans hemoflagellates of the genus trypanosome become infected, which is the root cause of Sleeping Sickness (8). There are many species of trypanosome, however only T. b. gambiense and T. b. rhodesiense are the causes of sleeping sickness. When the trypanosome gets infected the antibodies, IgM and IgG, start to get produced by the immune system, which leads to a decrease of parasitemia (7). However, some of the trypanosomes have a new surface coat that is resistant to the antibodies, so they keep proliferating and the immune system isn’t able to eliminate the parasite (7).

Trypanosoma brucei is a parasite that causes the vector-borne parasitic disease Trypanosomiasis; also known as the African sleeping sickness. The Scientific classification of Trypanosoma is as follows: Domain- Eukaryota, Kingdom- Protista, Phylum- Euglenozoa, Class- Kinetoplastea, Order- Trypanosomatida, Family- Trypanosomatidae, Genus- Trypanosoma and Species- T. brucei. The name is derived from the Greek word trypano meaning “borer” and soma meaning “body” because of their cork-screw like motion. It is a unicellular eukaryote with a single flagella that aids in propulsion and motility. T. brucei is generally found in countries south of the Sahara Desert; the sub-Saharan. The tsetse fly is the vector responsible for transmission to the

Human African Trypanosomiasis, HAT, is caused by two subspecies of T. brucei, T. brucei gambiense which are responsible for the chronic form of sleeping sickness in West and Central Africa. The other form is T. brucei rhodesiense which is responsible to the form in East and South Africa. Both are infectious to humans. The third form, T. brucei brucei, is only infectious to animals (Steverding,

Sleeping sickness, Human African trypanosomiasis, caused massive public deaths in rural areas and was a public health issue for colonial officials in East Africa in the early 1900s. There were two forms of the disease, Trypanosoma brucei gambiense and Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense. T. gambiense is more prevalent and causes a chronic infection while T. rhodesiense is less prevalent but causes acute infection in individuals infected with sleeping sickness . Sleeping sickness is considered a protozoan parasitic disease that is spread by infected tsetse flies, Glossina palpalis, which are common in rural areas of Africa . The disease came in different waves throughout the 19th and 20th century and left many dead, particularly in the lakeshore areas. The written documents from the early 20th century on the sleeping sickness epidemics show that the advancing knowledge derived from medical research and experimentations led to the creation of strict public health policies, such as depopulation and restriction of travel, in the modern imperial world.

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)