Name
Greek: trypanon = boring system; soma = body. The species name honors the English scientist David Bruce (1855–1931), who detected these parasites.
Geographic Distribution/Epidemiology
Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense in East Africa and T. brucei gambiense in West Africa. It is believed that due to slave transportation from East Africa to West Africa (to the formerly named Côte d’esclaves), the disease was transported from West Africa also to East Africa. There had been large epidemics around 1900 in Central and East Africa killing millions of inhabitants of, e.g., Belgian Kongo or of the English colonies in the region of Lake Victoria. Today there are still several hundred thousand humans infected in West and East Africa. The number is again increasing since actually numerous ethnic/religious local wars prohibit early treatment. Today about 50 million people are endagered and about 10000 seriously infected: 2 % due to T. b. rhodesiense and 98 % due to T. b. gambiense.
Morphology/Life...
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Further Reading
Alsford S et al (2013) Genetic dissection of drug resistance in trypanosomes. Parasitology 140:1478–1491
Brun R et al (2010) Human African trypanosomiasis. Lancet 375:148–159
Dyer NA et al (2013) Flying tryps: survival of trypanosomes in tsetse flies. Trends Parasitol 28:188–196
Gibson W (2012) The origins of the trypanosome strains Trypanosoma brucei brucei TREU 927, T. gambiense DAL 972; T. vivax Y486 and T. congolense IL3000. Parasit Vectors 5:71–77
Hall PJ et al (2013) Mosaic VSGs and the scale of Trypanosoma brucei antigenic variation. PLoS Pathog 9:e1003502
Keating J et al (2015) Human African trypanosomiasis prevention. Acta Tropica 150:4–13
Manna PT et al (2013) Adaptin evolution in kinetoplastids and emergence of the variant surface glycoprotein coat in African trypanosomatids. Mol Phylogenet Evol 67:123–128
Priotto G et al (2009) Nifurtimox-eflornithine combination therapy for second stage African T. b. gambiense trypanosomiasis. Lancet 374:56–64
Steinmann P et al (2015) Contemporary and emerging strategies for eliminating human African trypanosomiasis due to T.b. gambiense. Trop Med Int Hlth 20:707–718
Stephens NA et al (2012) Trypanosome resistance to human innate immunity: targeting Achilles’ heel. Trends Parasitol 28:539–545
WHO (2014) Human African trypanosomiasis elimination. Symptoms, diagnosis and treatment, Geneva
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Mehlhorn, H. (2015). Trypanosoma brucei Group of Humans. In: Mehlhorn, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Parasitology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27769-6_4459-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27769-6_4459-1
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