Sleeping sickness

"Sleeping sickness" is also another name for Narcolepsy.

Sleeping sickness, or African trypanosomiasis, is an infectious disease. It is caused by parasites from the species Trypanosoma brucei.

People get African trypanosomiasis from the tsetse fly. Because of this, it is most common in certain areas of Africa, especially Sub-Saharan Africa, where the tsetse fly lives. Researchers say that about 70 million people, in 36 countries, are at a high risk for getting sleeping sickness.^[1] As of 2010, sleeping sickness had caused around 9,000 deaths per year (compared to 34,000 in 1990).^[2]

In 2013, about 30,000 people had African trypanosomiasis. Also, about 7,000 more people were getting the disease every year.^[3] More than 80% of these people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.^[3]

Medications can treat African trypanosomiasis. The treatment is usually done in a hospital, because the drugs have many side effects. For sleeping sickness that was not treated early, the medications used for treatment are based on arsenic, a poison. These medications are dangerous, and about 5% of people die from taking them.

The best way to protect against African trypanosomiasis is to protect against insect bites.

1. ↑ Simarro PP, Cecchi G, Franco JR; et al. (2012). "Estimating and mapping the population at risk of sleeping sickness". PLOS Negl Trop Dis. 6 (10): e1859. doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0001859. PMC 3493382. PMID 23145192.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
2. ↑ Lozano, R (15 December 2012). "Global and regional mortality from 235 causes of death for 20 age groups in 1990 and 2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010". Lancet. 380 (9859): 2095–128. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(12)61728-0. hdl:10292/13775. PMC 10790329. PMID 23245604. S2CID 1541253.^{[permanent dead link]}
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1} WHO Media centre (March 2014). "Fact sheet N°259: Trypanosomiasis, Human African (sleeping sickness)". World Health Organization. Retrieved 25 April 2014.