Kenya certified by WHO as free of sleeping sickness
Why in the news
The World Health Organization has certified Kenya as having eliminated human African trypanosomiasis, better known as sleeping sickness, as a public health problem. Kenya becomes the tenth African country to achieve this.
Key facts
- Disease: human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), caused by Trypanosoma brucei parasites spread by tsetse flies.
- Forms: chronic gambiense (West and Central Africa) and acute rhodesiense (East and Southern Africa).
- Symptoms: fever and joint pain at first, later confusion and disturbed sleep.
- Kenya had also eliminated Guinea worm disease earlier, in 2018.
About the disease burden
In the twentieth century nearly 40,000 cases were reported in a year at the peak, with many more going undetected. By 2018 reported cases had fallen below 1,000 a year, and most now occur in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Farming, fishing and livestock communities face the greatest risk, and animals can act as reservoirs, especially for the rhodesiense form. WHO’s target is to stop transmission altogether by 2030 through surveillance and public health measures.
Exam angle
- Kenya is the 10th African country certified for HAT elimination.
- The vector is the tsetse fly; the parasite is a protozoan, not a virus or bacterium.
- “Elimination as a public health problem” differs from full eradication.