Brice Rotureau

INTRODUCTION Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), or sleeping sickness, is one of the 21 conditions identified as a neglected tropical disease by the World Health Organization (WHO) (1). HAT is caused by an infection with the extracellular protozoan parasite Trypanosoma brucei (Tb) gambiense (gHAT) in West and Central Africa or T. b. rhodesiense (rHAT) in East and Southern Africa. Both HAT infections follow a typical clinical pattern.

eLife Assessment African (or Salivarian) trypanosomes are significant pathogens of humans and domestic animals. For many decades is was accepted that only the "stumpy" non-proliferative form was capable of infecting the Tsetse-fly vector, but recent work challenged this, suggesting that the proliferative "slender" form is also infective.