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Tuesday, March 4, 2014

The Sleeping Sickness *dun dun dunnnnnn*

When I was looking through the previous blog posts, I wanted to learn more about Tanuja's post.  The African trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness, is a disease spread by the tsetse fly. It is known to have two stages. The first stage involves symptoms such as fever, headaches, joint pains, and itching. The second stage happens when the parasite invades the central nervous system and breaks through the blood-brain barrier. That disrupts the sleep cycle, and that is how it got the name the 'sleeping sickness'. There are many other symptoms, and without treatment, the disease can be fatal. There is a treatment, but treatment for the second stage can cause death in 5% of the people, and the rest of the treatment does not always work. I think I would be really scared if I got it, so I would try my best to stay away from the tsetse fly if I ever were in Africa.What would you do?
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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousMarch 4, 2014 at 6:10 PM

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  2. AnonymousMarch 6, 2014 at 10:47 AM

    If I ever went to Africa(which I would never do), I would DEFINITELY stay away from the tsetse fly. I researched the Trypanosomiasis disease and it is a disease caused by the evil, evil, little being, called the Tsetse fly... I feel really bad for the people in Africa, because it is scary to think that one, just one, bite from this deadly little insect could possible kill you... AND it lives in the same area where you live. I don't know about you, but I just find that VERY creepy. I think that they should keep trying to find a cure for this crazy bad disease. Do you think they will ever find it?

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