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Engineering control of insect-borne diseases
Published in Sandy Cairncross, Richard Feachem, Environmental Health Engineering in the Tropics, 2018
Sandy Cairncross, Richard Feachem
There are two forms of sleeping sickness, both transmitted by tsetse flies (Glossina spp.; Figure 15.7c), which affect between them a huge area of tropical Africa. The first, caused by Trypanosoma gambiense, is transmitted in West and Central Africa by the G. palpalis and G. fusca riverine and forest-dwelling species groups. The riverine tsetse species can be considered a water-related vector (Category 4, Table 1.2), as it breeds and lives around trees and bushes along the banks of streams and around water holes, and bites people visiting the stream to water cattle or collect water for their families. Several bites by infected flies are usually required to cause sleeping sickness, and transmission is often concentrated near to tsetse breeding sites. The disease is thus potentially controlled if the need to visit breeding sites is reduced by providing adequate water supplies in the village. Tsetse control has also been achieved in parts of West Africa by clearing vegetation from the banks of streams and lakes to remove suitable breeding sites.
Innovations in Noninvasive Instrumentation and Measurements
Published in Robert B. Northrop, Non-Invasive Instrumentation and Measurement in Medical Diagnosis, 2017
Applications of the SFCM in medical diagnosis include examination of blood drops for anomalies. Blood contains erythrocytes (RBCs), leukocyctes (WBCs), platelets, and can have things that shouldn't be there, such as free bacteria and blood-borne parasites. Protozoans of particular interest include Plasmodium (∼200 species) (P. falciparum, P. vivax, P. knowlesi, and P. malariae cause malaria in humans). The spirochete bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi, causes Lyme disease, and the spirochete bacterium, Treponema pallidum (an obligate intracellular parasite), causes syphilis. (There are ∼31 Treponema spp.) Also parasites such as Schistosoma (26) spp. (S. mansoni, S. intercalatum, S. haematobium, S. japonicum, and S. mekongi) can infect humans and cause schistosomiasis. The parasitic nematode, Trichinella (8) spp. (T. spiralis, T. nativa, and T. britovi), can infect humans and cause trichinosis. The parasite Trypanosoma brucei and T. brucei gambiense are responsible for East and West African Sleeping Sickness, respectively. The disease known as babesiosis is caused by a protozoan blood parasite, Babesia (14) spp. B. microti, B. duncani, and B. divergens infect human erythrocytes. The physical symptoms of babesiosis are often confused with Malaria. Babesiosis is spread by tick bites.
Ruthenium in Medicinal Chemistry
Published in Ajay Kumar Mishra, Lallan Mishra, Ruthenium Chemistry, 2018
Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), also known as sleeping sickness, is a parasitic disease caused by two subspecies of Trypanosoma brucei brucei, namely T. brucei gambiense or T. brucei rhodesiense. Wild and domestic animals can host these parasites and may represent under particular conditions an important reservoir of infection. The disease mostly affects poor populations living in remote rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, although cases have been reported in suburban areas of big cities. In the last 20 years, the incidence of the disease has been decreasing according to WHO initiatives. In particular, in 2014 the number of new cases reported dropped below 4000 and the estimated number of actual cases was 15000 (WHO—neglected diseases, 2016).
Trypanosomiasis, tropical medicine, and the practices of inter-colonial research at Lake Victoria, 1902-07
Published in History and Technology, 2019
Human African trypanosomiasis, known commonly as sleeping sickness, is a parasitic infection spread by a biting fly, generally fatal when left untreated. As the trypanosome parasite affects the body’s systems, it causes wasting, weakness, and malaise, ultimately impacting the central nervous system and causing disruptions in sleep and temperament before coma and death. Unpredictable sleepiness and an inability to be awakened gave the illness its early colloquial names, ranging from ‘sleeping sickness’ to malali (from the Bantu root verb – lala, to sleep). The causative parasite Trypanosoma brucei exists only on the African continent; it and its tsetse fly vector extend across wide swaths of tropical and savannah climate zones, giving it a long and deep-seated history in both human and animal populations.1 Its modern story is singular: it has sickened and killed hundreds of thousands of people since the late nineteenth century after breaking out in repeated, successive epidemics that followed on the heels of European colonial incursion.2 New colonial economic imperatives that shifted labor, diminished food security, and forced environmental change for African populations catalyzed or exacerbated these epidemics, which killed an estimated 500,000 in the Congo River basin and an estimated 250,000–300,000 in the Lake Victoria basin before 1920. Some affected populations in central Africa called it ‘the colonial disease’.3 Epidemic trypanosomiasis linked directly to increasing violence, insecurity, famine, and social disruption.
Why agricultural production in sub-Saharan Africa remains low compared to the rest of the world – a historical perspective
Published in International Journal of Water Resources Development, 2020
Vibeke Bjornlund, Henning Bjornlund, Andre F. Van Rooyen
Tsetse flies cause sleeping sickness in cattle, horses and humans. Their presence in forests and parts of the savannah (Figure 2) significantly restricted intensification, as the use of animal power for cultivation and transport, and the availability of manure, were limited (Alsan, 2015; Austen & Headrick, 1983).