Scottish scientists working on drug for sleeping sickness
Scientists are investigating a new treatment for a parasitic disease called sleeping sickness that affects between 50,000 and 70,000 people in Africa and South America.
The disease also called Human Arfica Trypanosomiasis impacts the nervous system and brain and leads to a condition when a person has fever, headaches and disturbed sleep patterns. The disease is spread through the bite of the tsetse fly.
Scientists at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland are working on drug for the fatal disease. The drug is currently at the early-pre-clinical stage.
Human African Trypanosomiasis, also known as sleeping sickness, affects between 50,000 and 70,000 people in Africa and South America. It is transmitted through the bite of the tsetse fly and attacks the nervous system and brain, leading to fever, headaches and disturbed sleep patterns.
"Sleeping sickness is a threat to the health of millions of people but is extremely difficult to treat. Giving the treatments currently available for it is problematic and these treatments have their own toxicity," said Professor Colin Suckling, of Strathclyde's Department of Pure and Applied Chemistry, who is leading the research for the new drug.
"At the second stage of the disease, when it gets into the brain, the patients have to be treated in hospital and this is often difficult to bring about. We need to develop a treatment which can deal with both forms of sleeping sickness at an early stage- safely, effectively, and, ideally, administered orally," he added.