{"id":24355,"date":"2025-08-10T16:23:05","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T10:53:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=24355"},"modified":"2025-08-11T14:41:27","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T09:11:27","slug":"human-african-trypanosomiasis-hat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/human-african-trypanosomiasis-hat\/","title":{"rendered":"Human African Trypanosomiasis (HAT)"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Human African Trypanosomiasis Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Recently, the World Health Organisation (WHO) certified Kenya as having eliminated human African trypanosomiasis, also known as sleeping sickness.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Human African Trypanosomiasis<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a <\/span><b>parasitic disease<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> transmitted through the <\/span><b>bite of infected tsetse flies.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is also known as sleeping sickness and is endemic in sub-Saharan Africa.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Symptoms of Human African Trypanosomiasis<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It shows initially symptoms such as <\/span><b>fever, headaches, and joint pain,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> but can progress to neurological issues like c<\/span><b>onfusion, disrupted sleep, and behavioural changes.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">First signs and symptoms emerge a few weeks or months after infection. The disease develops rapidly with multi-organ invasion, including the brain.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It takes 2 forms, depending on the subspecies of the infecting parasite:<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><b>Trypanosoma brucei gambiense:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It is found in <\/span><b>24 countries of west and central Africa,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> currently accounts for 92% of reported cases and causes a chronic illness.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A person can be <\/span><b>infected for months or even years<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> without major signs or symptoms. When evident symptoms emerge, often the disease is advanced with the central nervous system already affected.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><b>Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It is found in 13 countries of eastern and southern Africa, accounts for 8% of reported cases and causes an acute disease.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Who is at risk?<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It is more <\/span><b>prevalent amongst rural populations<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> which depend on agriculture, fishing, animal husbandry or hunting are the most exposed.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Till today, WHO has validated the elimination of the gambiense form of HAT in seven countries: Togo (2020), Benin (2021), Ivory Coast (2021), Uganda (2022), Equatorial Guinea (2022), Ghana (2023) ,Chad (2024) and Guinea (2025).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsonair.gov.in\/who-declares-kenya-free-of-sleeping-sickness\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">News on air<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Human African Trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness, is a parasitic disease spread by tsetse flies, endemic to sub-Saharan Africa. Read more about Human African Trypanosomiasis, Causes, Symptoms, Treatment<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":24356,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2113,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-24355","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-human-african-trypanosomiasis","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}