Two-drug combination puts sleeping sickness to bed

Darkfrog submitted, created time 4 weeks 1 day (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)

A 280-patient trial has shown that treating human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), commonly known as sleeping sickness, with only fourteen infusions of eflornithine paired with ten days' treatment with oral nifurtomox is at least as effective as the more grueling fifty-six-infusion eflornithine regimen or the more dangerous melarsoprol regimen. In addition, the two-drug approach showed fewer side effects and seems less likely to breed resistant parasites

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Scientists: Global Warming May Spread "Deadly Dozen" Diseases

jerry submitted, created time 2 months 4 weeks (www.foxnews.com)

Bird flu is just one of eleven diseases that may worsen with global warming, scientists are warning. Scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society have nicknamed twelve diseases the “deadly dozen” and say they are spreading across the globe and becoming dangerous to human an animal populations.

The other eleven diseases include babesiosis, cholera, ebola, lyme disease, plague, red tides, rift valley fever, sleeping sickness, tuberculosis, and yellow fever. Intestinal and external parasites are counted as one problem.

1 comment | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: global climate change climate change, bird flu influenza epidemiology global warming parasites yellow fever tuberculosis sleeping sickness rift valley fever red tides plague lyme disease ebola cholera babesiosis

Research organisations join forces to develop treatments for neglected diseases

sea-maid submitted, created time 6 months 2 weeks (www.bmj.com)

Two research organisations based in Paris, the Institute of Research for Development and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, have announced that they will work together to develop new candidate drugs to treat visceral leishmaniasis, Chagas's disease, and sleeping sickness.

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One Step Closer To A Cure For African Sleeping Sickness

Cindy submitted, created time 1 year 8 months (www.medicalnewstoday.com)

Studies of the enzyme CTP synthetase in the parasite Trypanosoma brucei have brought researchers at Umeå University in Sweden closer to a cure for African sleeping sickness.Since the parasite constantly changes its surface, it can avoid the immune defense of humans and invade the central nervous system, which leads to personality disturbances, sleep disruptions, and ultimately death. For patients affected by a severe T brucei infection in the central nervous system, there are no medicines that can treat both subspecies without incurring extremely serious side effects.

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