WHO declares Kenya free of deadly sleeping sickness after decades

https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20250823-who-declares-kenya-free-of-deadly-sleeping-sickness-after-decades

Kenya’s success in the fight against deadly sleeping sickness marks a milestone in the African continent's battle to eradicate neglected tropical diseases.

186 points · 10 comments · view on lemmy.world

10 Comments

gnutrino@programming.dev · 52 pts · 1y (5 replies)

I don't know, who does declare Kenya free of sleeping sickness?

Drusas@fedia.io · 18 pts · 1y

I miss bad joke eel.

TheBat@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 1y (3 replies)

[ removed ]

WindyRebel@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 1y (2 replies)

Tell me, WHO is?!

Klear@quokk.au · 4 pts · 1y (1 reply)

No, it's just The Doctor.

SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 1y

who?

Warl0k3@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1y (5 replies)

wait, how? Last I checked we didn't even know how it was spread, nor did we have a reliable treatment. This is huge, just weird to be this uninformed on the process of a super important medical development.

PlantJam@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 1y (2 replies)

Sleeping sickness – formally known as human African trypanosomiasis (HAT) – is a parasitic disease transmitted by the bite of the tsetse fly.

I don't know how new this information is, though.

shalafi@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1y

Don't remember when I learned that but I was a kid, 80s or so.

aislopmukbang@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 1y

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homoludens@feddit.org · 12 pts · 1y (1 reply)

The causative agent and vector were identified in 1903 by David Bruce, and the subspecies of the protozoa were differentiated in 1910. Bruce had earlier shown that T. brucei was the cause of a similar disease in horses and cattle that was transmitted by the tsetse fly (Glossina morsitans).[66]

The first effective treatment, atoxyl, an arsenic-based drug developed by Paul Ehrlich and Kiyoshi Shiga, was introduced in 1910, but blindness was a serious side effect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_trypanosomiasis#History

Maybe you confuse it with something else (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalitis_lethargica )?

Warl0k3@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 1y

Ah, I did indeed. Thank you!