Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), or sleeping sickness, has been a public health problem in Sudan for much of the 20 century. Endemic foci of Trypanosoma brucei gambiense are found in southern Sudan in a belt bordering Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. Gambiense sleeping sickness runs a chronic clinical course and is invariably fatal if left untreated. The di...

BACKGROUND Control of human African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) in the Democratic Republic of Congo is based on mass population active screening by mobile teams. Although generally considered a successful strategy, the community participation rates in these screening activities and ensuing treatment remain low in the Kasai-Oriental province. A better understanding of the reasons behind ...

At the turn of the last century, Africa faced an epidemic of sleeping sickness. For a while in the 70’s, with the advent and targeted use of insecticides like DDT, it seemed the disease would be eradicated. Today, Africa faces another sleeping sickness epidemic, which it seems little better equipped to respond to than it was a century ago and sleeping sickness looks to be a disease which may be...

It is now connected with the coast town of Mombassa by a line of railway through British territory. The Uganda Protectorate lies round the Northern Lake. Until recent years Uganda was practically closed to trade, but with the opening up ('antral Africa it ceased to be so. In this connection Sir Ray Lankester writes + : " The Sleeping Sickness of tropical Africa furnishes an example of one of th...

The traditional role of African elders and their connection with the community make them important stakeholders in community-based disease control programmes. We explored elders' memories related to interventions against sleeping sickness to assess whether or not past interventions created any trauma which might hamper future control operations. Using a qualitative research framework, we conduc...