African Sleeping Sickness Control is Vital

A WHO tropical disease expert said while new African sleeping sickness cases have been decreasing, disease control is still a priority.

Pere Simarro and colleagues at the World Health Organization said although elimination of the disease is considered feasible, there is a risk the illness could suffer the punishment of success — receiving lower priority by public and private health institutions with the consequent risk of losing the capacity to maintain disease control.

While waiting for new tools for sleeping sickness control, the greatest challenge for the coming years will be to increase and sustain the current control efforts using existing tools, said the researchers.

The study appears in the journal PLoS Medicine.