Content :

Sleeping sickness – The situation today

 

• What is sleeping sickness?
• Treatment
• Epidemiology
• Sanofi-aventis and sleeping sickness

What is sleeping sickness?

Human African Trypanosomiasis (HAT), or sleeping sickness, is one of the most complex - and one of the most neglected - of all endemic tropical diseases. Transmitted by the bite of the tsetse fly, this illness is rife mostly in Western and Central Africa, while the Rhodesian variety of the disease can be found in East Africa.  

Treatment

Sleeping sickness is a disease for which the effectiveness and innocuousness of the treatment depends on proactive screening so that cases are diagnosed early. During the initial phase of the illness, when treatment is well-tolerated and offers a high probability of a cure, the symptoms are generally minor and nonspecific.
This is why many patients do not seek medical advice until they are in too advanced a stage of the disease, by which time the parasite has already invaded the brain. Neurological problems then become too severe, including the disturbed sleeping patterns, hence the disease's name.

The disease rapidly develops toward an irreversible coma, leading to the inevitable death of the patient. Treatment of this neurological phase (stage two of the illness) is thus more complex, dangerous and without guaranteed results.

If left untreated, the disease is long, painful and always fatal.  

Epidemiology

In 1995, the WHO estimated that some 300,000 people were afflicted with the disease (Reference: WHO Series of Technical Reports N°881).

In its 2001 report WHO/C.D.S/C.S.R/I.S.R/2000.1 WHO Report on Global Surveillance of Epidemic-prone Infectious Diseases), the WHO set the figure of people at risk of infection at 60 million, out of whom only 4 to 5 million had access to any kind of monitoring.

In 2007, a recent WHO publication estimated that 15,000 new people are afflicted with the disease every year. This improvement is the result of the WHO's mobilization, as well as that of national programs and N.G.Os. It was largely thanks to the major contribution made by sanofi-aventis since 2001, outlined in the upcoming pages, that made the WHO's central role possible.  

Sleeping sickness

Sanofi-aventis and sleeping sickness

The main medicines that are effective against sleeping sickness (pentamidine, melarsoprol and eflornithine) are manufactured by sanofi-aventis. 

Thanks to this initial partnership 2001-2006 between WHO and sanofi-aventis, 110 000 lives were saved.  

• Download the sanofi-aventis Access to Medicines brochure (new window, PDF, 8.1 Mb)