Togo has become the first African country to eliminate sleeping sickness as a public health problem, the World Health Organisation announced recently. The West African country received the validation from the WHO after it succeeded in going 10 years without reporting any cases of the deadly disease, also known as Human African Trypanosomiasis. “Togo is a pathfinder in eliminating sleeping sickness, a disease which has threatened millions of Africans,” said Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO’s regional director for Africa.
The country’s public health officials started implementing control measures from 2000. In 2011, it established surveillance sites at hospitals in Mango and Tchamba cities, covering the main areas prone to the disease. In 1995, about 25,000 cases were detected, about 300,000 cases were estimated to have gone undetected, with 60 million people estimated to be at risk of infection. In 2019, fewer than 1,000 cases were found. Togo has not reported any case in the past 10 years, said the WHO’s Regional Office for Africa in Brazzaville, Congo.
WHO-led global collaboration supported these efforts by donating medicines and resources from pharmaceutical companies. This helped strengthen local capacity to counter the disease and ensured there were enough tools available to control it. African trypanosomiasis or sleeping sickness is caused by parasites which are transmitted by infected tsetse flies. It is found in only 36 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and can be very fatal if left untreated, according to the WHO.
WHO, however, warned Togo to continue surveillance of the disease to avoid resurgence because its neighbouring countries have not curbed the disease yet.
