People get African trypanosomiasis from the tsetse fly. Because of this, it is most common in certain areas of Africa, especially Sub-Saharan Africa, where the tsetse fly lives. Researchers say that about 70 million people, in 36 countries, are at a high risk for getting sleeping sickness. As of 2010, sleeping sickness had caused around 9,000 deaths per year (compared to 34,000 in 1990).
In 2013, about 30,000 people had African trypanosomiasis. Also, about 7,000 more people were getting the disease every year. More than 80% of these people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Medications can treat African trypanosomiasis. The treatment is usually done in a hospital, because the drugs have many side effects. For sleeping sickness that was not treated early, the medications used for treatment are based on arsenic, a poison. These medications are dangerous, and about 5% of people die from taking them.
The best way to protect against African trypanosomiasis is to protect against insect bites.
The signs and symptoms of African trypanosomiasis happen in two stages.
Common symptoms in this stage include:
If African trypanosomiasis is not treated at this point, the parasite will also get into the circulatory system and defeat the body's natural defenses. If this happens, the person can have:
This phase begins when the parasite invades the central nervous system by passing through the blood–brain barrier.
In this stage, one of the most common symptoms is trouble sleeping. This is where the name "sleeping sickness" comes from. People in this stage often cannot sleep normally, and may be up all night and then sleep during the day..
Other symptoms in this stage can include:
Without treatment, a person with African sleeping sickness will go into a coma; (thus the name) all their important organs will stop working; and they will die.Damage caused in the neurological phase cannot be fixed.
Ayyubid dynasty
The Ayyubid or Ayyoubid dynasty was a Muslim dynasty of Kurdish origins which ruled Egypt, Syria, Yemen (except for the Northern Mountains), Diyar Bakr, Mecca, Hejaz and northern Iraq in the 12th and 13th centuries. The Ayyubids are also known as Ayoubites, Ayyoubites, Ayoubides or Ayyoubides.
The Ayyubid dynasty was begun by Saladin (Salah ah-Din). Saladin and his uncle Shirkuh conquered Egypt for the Zengid King Nur ad-Din of Damascus in 1169. The dynasty's name comes from Saladin's father and Shirkuh's brother, Najm ad-Din Ayyub.
Vice-President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State
The Executive Council was the cabinet of the Irish Free State, it was headed by the "President of the Executive Council".
Constitution of The Irish Free State said that the Vice President would act for the President of the Executive Council while he was absent, or until a new President was elected
Because the Executive Council only had five, six or seven members, the Vice President was also a minister in charge of a department.
Neither the ministry of the Irish Republic nor the Provisional Government had a deputy head of government, so the office of Vice-President of the Executive Council was a new idea of the Free State. In 1937 when the Constitution of the Irish Free State was replaced by Bunreacht na hÉireann the Vice President was replaced by the Tánaiste.
Tsetse fly
Tsetse flies are large biting flies that live in the tropical regions of Africa. They bite vertebrates, and drink their blood. They are the insect vectors of some serious diseases.
They have been studied a lot because they can spread sleeping sickness and other diseases.
The genus "Glossina" has about 34 species in three groups of species. One group of species lives out on the savannah; another group lives near rivers, and the third group lives in tropical forests.
Tsetse have an unusual life cycle. Female tsetse only fertilize one egg at a time and keep each egg in their uterus while the offspring develops internally during the first larval stages. During this time, the female feeds the developing offspring with a milky substance secreted by a modified gland in the uterus.
In the third larval stage, the tsetse larva finally leave the uterus and crawl into the ground. There it forms a hard outer shell and becomes the pupa. It completes its metamorphosis into an adult fly. This takes twenty to thirty days, while the larva relies on stored resources.
Normally, insect larvae feed themselves before pupation, but tsetse development (before it emerges as a full adult) occurs without feeding. The development is based only on nutritional resources provided by the female parent, which shows how blood is a rich source of nutrition. The female must get enough energy for her needs, for the needs of her developing offspring, and to store the resources which her offspring will require until it emerges as an adult.
Before the 20th century, people and their cattle simply did not live in areas infested with tsetse flies. In the 20th century, using pesticides after World War II caused as many problems as it solved. Now more subtle methods are preferred. Tsetse flies can be trapped by using large blue cloths as a lure. Another good method is to release irradiated male flies, which are sterile. Since females mate only once in their lives, that much reduces the population.
Pun
A pun is a joke which is a “play on words” (a game using words). People make puns in order to make other people laugh. Many jokes are actually puns. A pun usually uses a word which can have more than one meaning, even if the spelling is different:
Sometimes a pun may use a whole phrase that can be heard in more than one way, as in the following knock-knock joke:
(The last sentence is supposed to mean: “This was the way I used to speak before I got my false teeth”).
There is a joke about a man who sent ten different puns to friends in the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did.
(The joke here is on “no pun intended,” which is said when a person unintentionally says a pun by coincidence, and announces the find ).
There are many websites and books which have jokes, very often with puns.
Puns are easier to make in some languages than others. Languages with many homophones (words which sound the same but have a different meaning) such as the Chinese language are most suitable for puns.
Puns do not have to be about homonyms. They can sometimes be a double entendre using both a literal sense of the word and a metaphor (figurative use). For example, if a young man joins the Navy and someone says that he "sailed through his exams", this is a joke because: 1) the expression "to sail through something" means "to do it easily", but 2) the Navy is about sailing in ships. It is possible to say something like that without realizing that it is a pun.
Another example is a story about two boys growing up and eating more and more food. One of the parents just began a new job and the other says, "I hope you can start bringing home the bacon!" In this example, bacon is a play on words meaning both money and the food, bacon.
Many British people love making puns, especially bad puns (where a word has to be mispronounced to make the joke work). Lewis Carroll made many puns in his books "Alice in Wonderland" and "Alice through the Looking Glass".
These are also a few examples of different puns:
Really "cool" music as the rock band plays on an iceberg,
"You're fired!" as the man is shot from a gun.
"How is your vineyard doing?" a neighbor asked. The woman replied, "It's growing grape!" (play on words: "It's going great!"North American P-51 Mustang