What Impact Does the African Sleeping Sickness Have on Africa?

Symptoms and Signs

A painful swelling occurs at the location where the person was bitten by the tsetse fly. Fever, headaches, joint pains and itching are the first indicators that a person is infected with Sleeping Sickness. These signs are followed by the neurological phase, when the parasite invades the central nervous system. Symptoms of this phase include confusion, sensory disturbances and poor coordination. The disease gets its name from the disturbances it causes in a patient's sleep cycle. Without treatment at this second stage, sufferers will die.

The first known Sleeping Sickness epidemic was recorded in Uganda and the Congo Basin between 1896 and 1906. A number of African countries suffered from another epidemic in 1920, while the most recent outbreak occurred in 1970. This ailment remains a major public health problem in the Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Malawi, Uganda and Tanzania.

The tsetse flies that carry Sleeping Sickness are usually found in vegetation around water sources like rivers and lakes, as well as in forests and wooded savannahs. Remote rural areas are the most afflicted due to weak or non-existent health systems. Sleeping sickness usually spreads with political instability, displacement of populations, war and poverty.

There are two forms of Sleeping Sickness found in different parts of Africa. West and Central Africa are home to Trypanosoma brucei gambiense (T.b.g.), which encompasses 90 percent of all cases of Sleeping Sickness. Symptoms of T.b.g. do not present themselves until the disease has advanced to the central nervous system.

Eastern and Southern Africa are home to Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense (T.b.r.), which makes up less than 10 percent of all reported cases. Victims of T.b.r. will begin experiencing symptoms a few weeks or months after contraction. This form develops quickly and invades the central nervous system shortly after signs show up.

Over 70 million people, according to the World Health Organization, live in areas where transmission of African Sleeping Sickness is likely. As of 2005, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola and Sudan, it is the first or second cause of mortality, exceeding HIV/AIDS in some communities. Beyond health-related impacts, however, there are economic ones when the disease is found in cattle. Communities cannot sustain their livestock once it becomes infected with Sleeping Sickness. According to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, "Trypanosomiasis is probably the only disease which has profoundly affected the settlement and economic development of a major part of a continent."