Eosinophilia is pronounced. Most infected persons have no significant symptoms. If the parasite load is high, symptoms may include upper abdominal pain, feeling that something is moving in the liver, hepatomegaly with tenderness, jaundice, intermittent fever, lymphadenopathy, myalgia, and arthralgia. The condition may be chronic and include intermittent fever, vague abdominal symptoms, anorexia, and fatigue. Eosinophilia is pronounced.
Infection ranges from light and asymptomatic to heavy and life-threatening.
Initially there is malaise, nausea, cramping abdominal pain, and diarrhea. Gastrointestinal symptoms are followed in 1-6 weeks by fever, eosinophilia, periorbital and facial edema, conjunctivitis, dysphagia, dyspnea, cough, myalgia, and muscle spasms. Complications include meningitis and other neurological disorders, myocarditis, pneumonia, and nephritis. Trypanosomiasis is caused by protozoal parasites, Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiene or T b gambiense , transmitted by bite of the tsetse fly. The hemolymphatic stage is characterized by high fevers lasting several days, with symptom-free periods of days to weeks.