Sleeping sickness re-emerges in Uganda

doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7431.70-e

BMJ 2004;328:70 (10 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7431.70-e

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Sleeping sickness re-emerges in Uganda

Kampala Benjamin Ochan

Millions of Ugandans are at risk of contracting sleeping sickness (trypanosomiasis), after its re-emergence in areas where numbers of cases had been brought down to very low levels. The disease is also spreading to new areas.

National control programmes had been sacrificed in favour of programmes for new emerging public health problems such as HIV and AIDS, said Bob Mbulamberi, an expert on trypanosomiasis and assistant commissioner for health services in charge of control of vector borne diseases in the ministry of health. He said that over the past 12 years the disease had been given only marginal recognition by the government and the international community as a health problem and as a priority for research.

As a result the number of outbreaks in southeastern districts of Uganda where the disease has traditionally been endemic has increased. Drugs have been scarce, and resistance to drugs has increased, . . . [Full text of this article]

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