Surveillance of African Trypanosomiasis

Abstract

African trypanosomiasis is exceptional, particularly amongst parasitic diseases, in that it is almost invariably fatal if untreated. The devastating epidemics of the first half of this century, caught the attention of both medical authorities and the public and gave sleeping sickness and tsetse their dreaded reputation. However, also in all the countries of central and western Africa through which the epidemic wave passed, a sleeping sickness control organization was set up which later, when reasonable control had been attained, expanded to become a service dealing with the major epidemic diseases encountered in rural conditions.