Human African Trypanosomaisis a.k.a. African Sleeping Sickness

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The Human African Trypanosomiasis, more commonly referred to as African sleeping sickness, is a biological vector-borne parasitic ("Trypanosomiasis, human african," 2014). The communicable infection is caused by protozoan parasite of the genus Trypanosoma. Transmission occurs to humans by tsetse flies bites. The tsetse flies acquire infection when feeding on blood containing trypomastigotes from infected humans or animals. The parasite will go through asexual reproduction in the fly gut, evolving from a procyclic trypomastigotes to epimastigotes. Eventually moving to the salivary glands of the Tsetse fly where they transform to a metacyclic trypomastigote, which is infectious to humans. Transmission from fly to human happens when an infected tsetse fly passes metacyclic trypomastigotes within the saliva into the blood while feeding. This then becomes trypomastigotes and will proliferate in the blood and other bodily fluids, which leads to disease (Krafsur, 2008). In Africa the tsetse flies inhabit the greenery around rivers, ponds and lakes additionally the disease has posed an immediate health & economic problem across Sub-Saharan Africa.
There are two types of the protozoan parasite disease that infect humans. Trypanosoma rhodesiense East African sleeping sickness is found in areas of eastern and southeastern Africa. Well over 95% of human infection takes place in Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, and Zambia. The primary reservoir for the infection is animals. Cattle are being looked at in the spread of the disease to uninfected areas where new outbreaks occur. Also wild animal are thought to be responsible scattered transmission to outdoor enthusiast and hunters visiting Africa’s publicized game parks. The Infection has found i...

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...rld Health Organization in conjunction through a private partnership with Sanofi and Bayer AG in endemic countries (World Health Organization, 2014).
Getting early diagnosis of African sleeping sickness is essential in view of the diseases natural grim outcome and the toxicity of the medications prescribed during either stage treatment. A blood sample would be a collected to determine if the parasite Trypanosoma rhodesiense is present because the higher levels of parasitaemia found in the blood. As for Trypanosoma brucei gambiense it’s found through a lymph node aspirate due to its lack of presence in the blood. Once confirmed to be infected the collection of Cerebrospinal fluid needs to be taken to see if the central nervous system is compromised. This will indicate disease stage and which course of drug treatment is used ("CDCParasites - African," 2012).

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