1. Trypanosoma Brucei (Sleeping Sickness)
By Jessie Dunn

2. What is it?
The Sleeping Sickness is a disease caused by a tsetse fly biting it’s victim. After the fly bites, a worm is swimming through the victim’s blood and eating the blood sugars.

3. How it happens
The parasite lives in the stomach of the tsetse fly. It moves into the salivary glands to be injected into the victim. After the fly bites the victim, the parasite is swimming through the blood and eventually breaks through the blood brain barrier.

4. Symptoms
In the first 1-3 weeks, the victim gets red chancres around the bite. It looks like a rash.
A few months later: anemia, itching, cardiac dysfunction, fever, fatigue, headaches, muscle and joint pain, renal failure, rash, swelling, weight loss.
Eventually, there is a lot of confusion, strange behavior, blackouts, coma, and if not treated, death.

5. Sleep Problems
The most common symptom of this disease is a change in sleep patterns. The victim is tired during the day but can’t sleep at night.

6. Where?
This disease is found in Central and West Africa. However, there are a few variations of the disease in Central and South America.

7. Who?
The most common people to get sleeping sickness are people working in agriculture, fishing, or any other animal work.

8. People With Disease
There are around 10,000 reported cases of sleeping sickness every year. however, scientists have estimated that there are around 30,000 cases per year.

9. Treatment
Phase 1: Pentamidine and Suramin can help to cure the disease if it is treated this early.
Phase 2: harder to treat. Melarsoprol can treat it but it is fatal almost 10% of the time. Eflornithine can cure it too but it is very difficult to apply.

10. How Dangerous?
If it is treated, then depending on how far along the disease is, it is not too terrible, even though it is very inconvenient.
If it is not treated, it is fatal.

11. Chart