Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Getting Sick While You Sleep?
Have you ever heard of the Sleeping Sickness? Well I hadn't until I read this article. Before learning about this sickness I though that it was a disease you get when you are sleeping, but as it turns out, Trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness, is a sickness that ends up putting you into a coma, eventually killing you, giving it its name of the Sleeping Sickness. The sleeping sickness is carried by tsetse flies that carry Trypanosoma brucei gambiense, which causes this deadly disease. As the tsetse fly drains your blood, it also inserts trapanisoma, the parasite responsible of the damage, into you blood steam. They then attack for red blood cells making you very weak, later putting you into a coma, and finally killing you. What did you first think of when you heard of sleeping sickness?
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This is one of the disease that is going to make me never go to Africa. When I was young I thought it would be cool to go to Egypt, but I probably never will now. Though, i did read it usually occurs in rural areas. I just wish we could find a cure to all these diseases. The one good thing is it puts you in a coma, so you never feel the death, it just happens. So, would you rather die sleeping or wake?
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a terrible thing for African children to go through. From what I read, sleeping sickness only occurs in 36 sub-saharan African countries. It's good that they are in a coma, so they don't feel the death. I didn't know that you don't get the disease when you are sleeping, that's good to know!
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