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New Advances in Sleeping Sickness
Now there are times, especially on Saturday mornings when the kids are up at the crack of dawn, that my wife tells me she wants me to “deal” because she must have contracted African sleeping sickness over the course of the evening and just cannot get out of bed. (By the way, I get up with the kids every morning, just thought I would throw that in.)
But there is some recent news on this disease. African trypanosomiasis, aka sleeping sickness, is a serious disease spread by the bite of tsetse flies. It’s found only in Africa and it is fatal.
The symptoms include: fever, headache, and extreme tiredness. The disease progresses to attack the central nervous system, and, ultimately, results in death several months or years after infection.
The chances of my wife having contracted this overnight are in fact quite slim (thank goodness). A new study appears in the Public Library of Science’s journal PloS Clinical Trials shows some promise. They think that a particular drug combination may work on those infected with the disease, but there does not seem to be any inoculation for it as of yet.
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Technorati Tags: Sleep Doctor, sleeping sickness, insect bites, rare disease, trypanosomiasis
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