New Treatment for Sleeping Sickness

This is the VOA Special English Development Report. The World Health Organization is employing a new combination of drugs to treat human African trypanosomiasis illness, also recognized as sleeping sickness. The drugs nifurtimox and eflornithine will be given out in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Officials from the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative say the new treatment has fewer side effects. It is also much more powerful and much less expensive than the drugs traditionally used. In addition, the new treatment reduces the number of injections required. And it shortens the amount of time patients need to spend in the hospital. Sleeping sickness threatens millions of men and women in thirty-six countries in Africa. Most live in poor rural areas. The illness is caused by the trypanosoma parasite. It is spread to humans by means of the bite of infected tsetse flies. Widespread signs of sleeping sickness consist of fever, headaches, extreme tiredness and pain in the muscles and joints. Early identification of the illness may be difficult since several infected folks do not show any immediate symptoms. Over time, the parasites invade the central nervous system. The disease causes sleep disorders, mental confusion, personality changes, speech difficulties, seizures and coma. If left untreated, sleeping sickness kills. The World Health Organization estimates that about sixty thousand individuals are currently infected with the disease. It develops in two diverse forms. Trypanosoma gambiense is responsible for ...
Video Rating: four / five