Tsetse are large, biting flies that inhabit much of tropical Africa. Tsetse flies include all the species in the genus Glossina, which are placed in their own family, Glossinidae. The tsetse is an obligate parasite, which lives by feeding on the blood of vertebrate animals. Tsetse has been extensively studied because of their role in transmitting disease. They have a pronounced economic impact in sub-Saharan Africa as the biological vectors of trypanosomes, causing human and animal trypanosomiasis.
Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran was a French physician who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1907 for his discoveries of parasitic protozoans as causative agents of infectious diseases such as malaria and trypanosomiasis. Following his father, Louis Théodore Laveran, he took up military medicine as his profession. He obtained his medical degree from University of Strasbourg in 1867.
Ethidium bromide is an intercalating agent commonly used as a fluorescent tag in molecular biology laboratories for techniques such as agarose gel electrophoresis. It is commonly abbreviated as EtBr, which is also an abbreviation for bromoethane. To avoid confusion, some laboratories have used the abbreviation EthBr for this salt. When exposed to ultraviolet light, it will fluoresce with an orange colour, intensifying almost 20-fold after binding to DNA. Under the name homidium, it has been commonly used since the 1950s in veterinary medicine to treat trypanosomiasis in cattle. The high incidence of antimicrobial resistance makes this treatment impractical in some areas, where the related isometamidium chloride is used instead. Despite its reputation as a mutagen, tests have shown it to have low mutagenicity without metabolic activation.
Trypanosomiasis or trypanosomosis is the name of several diseases in vertebrates caused by parasitic protozoan trypanosomes of the genus Trypanosoma. In humans this includes African trypanosomiasis and Chagas disease. A number of other diseases occur in other animals.
Trypanosoma is a genus of kinetoplastids, a monophyletic group of unicellular parasitic flagellate protozoa. Trypanosoma is part of the phylum Euglenozoa. The name is derived from the Greek trypano- (borer) and soma (body) because of their corkscrew-like motion. Most trypanosomes are heteroxenous and most are transmitted via a vector. The majority of species are transmitted by blood-feeding invertebrates, but there are different mechanisms among the varying species. Trypanosoma equiperdum is spread between horses and other equine species by sexual contact. They are generally found in the intestine of their invertebrate host, but normally occupy the bloodstream or an intracellular environment in the vertebrate host.
Diminazene is an anti-infective medication for animals that is sold under a variety of brand names. It is effective against certain protozoa such as Babesia, Trypanosoma, and Cytauxzoon. The drug may also be effective against certain bacteria including Brucella and Streptococcus.
Trypanosoma brucei is a species of parasitic kinetoplastid belonging to the genus Trypanosoma that is present in sub-Saharan Africa. Unlike other protozoan parasites that normally infect blood and tissue cells, it is exclusively extracellular and inhabits the blood plasma and body fluids. It causes deadly vector-borne diseases: African trypanosomiasis or sleeping sickness in humans, and animal trypanosomiasis or nagana in cattle and horses. It is a species complex grouped into three subspecies: T. b. brucei, T. b. gambiense and T. b. rhodesiense. The first is a parasite of non-human mammals and causes nagana, while the latter two are zoonotic infecting both humans and animals and cause African trypanosomiasis.
Trypanosoma evansi is a parasitic species of excavate trypanosome in the genus Trypanosoma that is one cause of surra in animals. Discovered by Griffith Evans in 1880 at Dera Ismail Khan, it is the first known trypanosome that causes infection. It is a common parasite in India and Iran and causes acute disease in camels and horses, and chronic disease in cattle and buffalo. In Pakistan, it has been found to be the most prevalent trypanosome species in donkeys. It is now established to infect other mammals, including humans.
Covering sickness, or dourine, is a disease of horses and other members of the family Equidae. The disease is caused by Trypanosoma equiperdum, which belongs to an important genus of parasitic protozoa. The occurrence of dourine is notifiable in the European Union under legislation from the OIE. There currently is no vaccine and although clinical signs can be treated, there is no cure.
Major-General Sir David Bruce was a Scottish pathologist and microbiologist who made some of the key contributions in tropical medicine. In 1887, he discovered a bacterium, now called Brucella, that caused what was known as Malta fever. In 1894, he discovered a protozoan parasite, named Trypanosoma brucei, as the causative pathogen of nagana.
Animal trypanosomiasis, also known as nagana and nagana pest, or sleeping sickness, is a disease of vertebrates. The disease is caused by trypanosomes of several species in the genus Trypanosoma such as T. brucei. T. vivax causes nagana mainly in West Africa, although it has spread to South America. The trypanosomes infect the blood of the vertebrate host, causing fever, weakness, and lethargy, which lead to weight loss and anemia; in some animals the disease is fatal unless treated. The trypanosomes are transmitted by tsetse flies.
A trypanocidal agent is an antiprotozoal agent that acts upon trypanosome parasites.
Isometamidium chloride is a triazene trypanocidal agent used in veterinary medicine.
The Asian blue tick is an economically important tick that parasitises a variety of livestock and wild mammal species, especially cattle, on which it is the most economically significant ectoparasite in the world. It is known as the Australian cattle tick, southern cattle tick, Cuban tick, Madagascar blue tick, and Puerto Rican Texas fever tick.
Trypanosoma vivax is a parasite species in the genus Trypanosoma. It causes the disease nagana, affecting cattle or wild mammals. It is mainly occurs in West Africa, although it has spread to South America.
Mites that infest and parasitize domestic animals cause disease and loss of production. Mites are small invertebrates, most of which are free living but some are parasitic. Mites are similar to ticks and both comprise the order Acari in the phylum Arthropoda. Mites are highly varied and their classification is complex; a simple grouping is used in this introductory article. Vernacular terms to describe diseases caused by mites include scab, mange, and scabies. Mites and ticks have substantially different biology from, and are classed separately from, insects. Mites of domestic animals cause important types of skin disease, and some mites infest other organs. Diagnosis of mite infestations can be difficult because of the small size of most mites, but understanding how mites are adapted to feed within the structure of the skin is useful.
Eli Katunguka-Rwakishaya is a Ugandan veterinarian, academic and academic administrator. He is the Vice Chancellor of Kyambogo University, one of Uganda's public universities. He was appointed to that position in February 2014. Prior to that, he served at the Director of Postgraduate studies at Makerere University, the oldest and largest public university in the country.
A trypanotolerant organism is one which is relatively less affected by trypanosome infestation.
The Sleeping Sickness Commission was a medical project established by the British Royal Society to investigate the outbreak of African sleeping sickness or African trypanosomiasis in Africa at the turn of the 20th century. The outbreak of the disease started in 1900 in Uganda, which was at the time a protectorate of the British Empire. The initial team in 1902 consisted of Aldo Castellani and George Carmichael Low, both from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Cuthbert Christy, a medical officer on duty in Bombay, India. From 1903, David Bruce of the Royal Army Medical Corps and David Nunes Nabarro of the University College Hospital took over the leadership. The commission established that species of blood protozoan called Trypanosoma brucei, named after Bruce, was the causative parasite of sleeping sickness.
Keith Roland Matthews,, , is a British cell biologist and parasitologist, currently Professor of Parasite Biology in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. His research focuses on African trypanosomes, which cause human sleeping sickness and the equivalent cattle disease nagana.
