- LUANDA (Sapa-AFP) -- Sleeping
sickness, a vector-borne parasitic disease, is ravaging Angola, threatening
a third of the population across 14 of the 18 provinces in the south-west
African country which is still struggling to rebuild after a 27-year civil
war that ended in April 2002.
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- "The situation in Angola is alarming," said
Ndinga Dieyi Dituvanga, a doctor and an official with the Institute for
the Prevention of Trypanosomiasis, the scientific name for the disease,
which is initially characterised by bouts of fever, headaches, pains in
the joints and itching and affects both human beings and cattle.
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- Trypanosomiasis gets its common name from the second
phase of infection which occurs when the parasite crosses the blood-brain
barrier causing confusion, sensory disturbances, poor co-ordination and
sleep disturbances.
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- In 2003, 96 Angolans died of sleeping sickness by official
count while 3,115 new cases and 270,000 suspected cases were detected nationwide,
Dituvanga said.
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- The four southern provinces of Kunene, Huambo, Namibe
and Huila are the only ones not affected so far.
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- However, it is virtually endemic in the seven northern
provinces of Bengo, Kuanza north and Kwanza south, Luanda, Malange, Uige
and Zaire.
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- The ICCT, the French acronym for the Institute, admitted
that there were vast areas in the east of the war-ravaged country where
it had been completely unable to intervene.
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- "Actually we are only able to monitor the north
and have no idea what is happening in the east where the most virulent
form of the disease is believed to exist," Dituvanga said.
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- Despite a crippling lack of funds, the ICCT said it had
last year managed to destroy one million tsetse flies, which spread the
disease, in the seven worst-hit provinces, including the province of Luanda,
where the Angolan capital - which bears the same name - is located.
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- Dituvanga said sleeping sickness was for Angola a "social,
economic and political" problem as it had hit provinces which are
rich in in mineral resources such as oil-bearing Zaire province and diamond-bearing
Malange.
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- The ICCT has 21 diagnostic and treatment centres for
sleeping sickness. They are run by nine doctors, five researchers, an entomologist,
148 nurses and 53 laboratory staff.
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- The institute also runs periodic campaigns to try to
detect new cases and follow up with treatment, working in partnership with
eight international non-governmental organisations.
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- The biggest treatment and research facility is located
in Viana, close to Luanda and has 84 beds which are constantly occupied.
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- Sleeping sickness was first detected in Angola in 1871
but it was only in 1901 that the first medical team arrived here to combat
the disease, which was then put under control until the country's 1975
independence from Portugal.
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- But since then it has spread alarmingly.
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- A report published by the African Union in February last
year said sleeping sickness seriously threatened development across the
continent, with more than half-a-million suffering from the disease, 80
percent of whom perish.
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- About 20 species of the tsetse fly are found across a
third of the continent in 37 sub-Saharan countries.
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- Trypanosomiasis is also one of the most deadly parasite-borne
animal diseases.
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- According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation
(FAO), trypanosomiasis kills three million head of livestock every year
and sick animals become less productive.
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- Sleeping sickness threatens about 50 million cattle in
Africa, according to a recent report by the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation.
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