Both WHO and Aventis commend MSF for the public awareness raised on sleeping sickness affecting poor African countries. WHO will continue to seek new governmental, institutional and corporate partners to accelerate the war against sleeping sickness. Human African trypanosomiasis is becoming increasingly more prevalent after it had been close to being eliminated in the early 1960s. It is a parasitic infection transmitted by the tsetse fly. Eventually, it affects the central nervous system, causing severe neurological disorders and, if left untreated, it invariably causes the death of the person affected.
Symptoms begin with a low-grade fever, pain in the joints and itchy skin.
Eventually, the parasites carrying the disease enter the brain. Then hallucinations and unpredictable, disruptive behavior are common. A victim experiences excruciating pain. Those infected with gambiense develop drowsiness during the day, but insomnia at night. As the disease progresses, sleep becomes uncontrollable until the patient eventually lapses into a coma before dying.