Resistance And Genetic Sensitivity To Sleeping Sickness

... Human African trypanosomiasis, transmitted by tse-tse fly bite, is a mainly rural disease and is strongly linked to people's living patterns and conditions, proximity to water-courses, in particular. Although environmental and behavioural risk factors are important in the epidemiology of human African trypanosomiasis, individual sensitivity to the disease appears to exist, according to experimental and immunological studies. IRD researchers investigated the role of human genetic diversity in the resistance or sensitivity to parasitic diseases, including sleeping sickness. ...