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AFRICAN SLEEPING SICKNESS

METHOD

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TIME

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KNOWLEDGE

AFRICAN SLEEPING SICKNESS

Date:07/10 / (1 HOUR)
OBJECTIVES: / After working through this lesson, participants will be able to:
Tell why African sleeping serious is a dangerous disease.
Describe the stages of sleeping sickness.
Know that the treatment of Stage 2 African sleeping sickness is difficult and dangerous.

OVERVIEW FOR TRAINERS:This is another lesson in the series on tropical diseases. If available teach this lesson alongside the video, Survival – The deadliest disease.

METHOD

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TIME

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KNOWLEDGE

Story:
Imagine a disease that starts with a fly's bite and ends in death. The first stage of this disease causes non-specific symptoms such as itching and joint pains. If left untreated, it progresses to the second stage weeks, months, or even years later in which the affected person displays dramatic neurological and psychiatric symptoms before slipping into a fatal coma. This killer disease occurs in several countries, putting millions of people at risk with around 12000 people infected every year. Yet there is no easy diagnostic test and, until recently, the most effective treatment for the second stage was almost as dangerous as the disease.
Source: The Lancet, 2010 / 10”

----SHOWD questions----

S = What do you See?
H = What is Happening?
O = Does this happen in Our place?
W = Why does this happen?
D = What will we Do about it?
I. / African sleeping sickness
Discuss in large group. / 10” / I. / Sleeping sickness
A. / What is African sleeping sickness? / A. / What is African sleeping sickness?
Sleeping sickness is a serious disease.
It occurs in Africa.
It is caused by a parasite.
A parasite lives inside a person, living off that person and causing damage.
The medical name for sleeping sickness is African trypanosomiasis.
There are two different kinds: East African and West African sleeping sickness.
In West Africa, tse tse flies live near rivers, streams and drainage areas.
In East Africa, tse tse files feed on cattle and wild animals.
Sleeping sickness is carried by the tsetse fly.
Overtime, people become very sleepy.
Unless treated, all people with sleeping sickness will die.
B. / Why is sleeping sickness such a problem? / B. / Why is sleeping sickness such a problem?
About 12,000 people are infected each year.
There is no easy diagnostic test for sleeping sickness.
Unless treated, sleeping sickness leads to death.
But some treatments for sleeping sickness are very toxic.
People may even die as a result of the treatment.
II. / Stages of African sleeping sickness
Divide into small groups. Look at the pictures of Stages of African sleeping sickness. What is happening at each stage? / 20” / II. / Stages of African sleeping sickness
What is happening?
A. / Picture 1 / A. / Picture 1
A tse tse fly bites a person.
B. / Picture 2 / B. / Picture 2
A chancre or hard sore develops at the site of the tse tse fly bite.
The parasites spread throughout the body in the blood and in the lymph fluid.
C. / Picture 3 / C. / Picture 3
After about 3 weeks, the person may have symptoms.
This is called Stage 1 of sleeping sickness.
He may have a fever.
He may have a headache.
There may be muscle aches or joint pain.
He may have an itchy skin rash.
Often, there is a large, firm, rubbery lymph node at the back of the neck.
That large lymph node or gland at the back of the neck is typical of sleeping sickness.
D. / Picture 4 / D. / Picture 4
The parasites have now entered the brain and nervous system.
This is Stage 2, or late stage sleeping sickness.
This develops weeks or months later.
The person becomes very sleepy during the day, but often has trouble sleeping at night.
He may become irritable or have mood swings, with behavior changes.
He has a constant headache.
He doesn’t eat well and loses weight.
Later, he falls into a coma.
If not treated, all people with sleeping sickness will die.
III. / Diagnosis and treatment of African sleeping sickness
Discuss in large group. / III. / Diagnosis and treatment of sleeping sickness
A. / How is sleeping sickness diagnosed? / A. / Diagnosis
Sleeping sickness is suspected by the symptoms.
It is hard to do a blood test for sleeping sickness.
They can take a sample from the lymph node at the back of the neck.
They look at that sample from the lymph node under a microscope, looking for the parasite.
There is also a card test used in West Africa to test for sleeping sickness.
B. / How is sleeping sickness treated? / B. / Treatment
Early sleeping sickness (Stage 1) may be treated with medicines.
These medicines for sleeping sickness have many side effects.
These medicines do not enter the brain and nervous system, so they do not work well for late or Stage 2 sleeping sickness.
Treatment of late stage sleeping sickness is even harder.
The treatment may even cause death in some people.
So they are working on developing safer medicines.
IV. / Prevention and control of African sleeping sickness / IV. / Prevention and control of African sleeping sickness
A. / What are some ways to prevent African sleeping sickness? / A. / Prevention of sleeping sickness
Sometimes traps to catch tse tse flies are used.
It is hard to kill the tse tse flies living near the rivers and streams.
In East Africa, tse tse flies feed on cattle and wild animals.
But nobody wants to hurt these animals.
So it is hard to prevent infections with the sleeping sickness parasite.
B. / How can African sleeping sickness be controlled? / B. / Controlling sleeping sickness
It is hard to treat late or Stage 2 sleeping sickness.
So it is crucial to detect and treat people with an early infection.
Tools like the card test can be used to screen a group of people for this illness.
That helps to find all early cases and treat them.
In that way, fewer people will get sick with sleeping sickness.

References:

The Lancet. 2010. Killer coma: the evolving story of sleeping sickness treatment. Available from:

Patient UK. 2010. African trypanosomiasis. Available from:

Rockhopper TV. 2008. Survival – The deadliest disease. Available from:

Stanford Education. African trypanosomiasis. Available from:

Wikipedia. 2010. African trypanosomiasis. Available from:

World Health Organization. 2010. Human African trypanosomiasis. Available from:

ATTITUDE: / .
It is important to detect and treat African sleeping sickness early.
SKILL: / Participants will recognize the stages of African sleeping sickness, and know the importance of early diagnosis and treatment.
EVALUATION: / Are the participants able to tell their neighbors about African sleeping sickness?

MATERIALS:

/ -Newsprint, markers, masking tape
-Stages of African sleeping sickness illustrations

This lesson is used in: Health promotions/ Tropical diseases

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STAGES OF AFRICAN SLEEPING SICKNESS

What is happening at each stage? What do you see?