Togo ends sleeping sickness in Africa first

Togo has become the first African country to eradicate sleeping sickness, the World Health Organization said on Thursday.

The West African country received the validation from the WHO after it succeeded in going 10 years without reporting any cases of the deadly disease, also known as human African trypanosomiasis.

Its success has been attributed to more than two decades of sustained political commitment, surveillance and screening of communities.

"Thanks to the joint efforts of all health actors, the disease has been eliminated in Togo," Health and Public Hygiene Minister Moustafa Mijiyawa said. "Neighboring countries are not at the same phase and so surveillance must continue to avoid a resurgence of this disease."

Togo first applied for certification of elimination of sleeping sickness in 2018 and a team of WHO experts studied the data, made recommendations and requested a revision by the country before giving its approval.

Health officials started implementing control measures in 2000. In 2011, the country established surveillance sites at hospitals in the cities of Mango and Tchamba, which cover the main areas at risk from the disease.

Public health officials have since maintained heightened surveillance in endemic and at-risk areas.

A WHO-led global collaboration supported these efforts by donating medicines and resources from pharmaceutical companies. This helped strengthen local capacity to counter the disease and ensured there were enough tools available to control it.

"Togo is a pathfinder in eliminating sleeping sickness, a disease that has threatened millions of Africans," said Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO's regional director for Africa.

Sleeping sickness is caused by parasites that are transmitted by infected tsetse flies, and is found in 36 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

If left untreated, it's almost always fatal. In 1995, about 25,000 cases were detected, though some 300,000 cases were estimated to have gone undetected. The agency said that, at the time, 60 million people were estimated to be at risk of infection.

According to the UN agency, Africa is affected by two forms of sleeping sickness. The first, due to the parasite trypanosome brucei gambiense, is found in 24 countries in West and Central Africa and accounts for more than 98 percent of cases.

The second form, caused by the trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense parasite, is found in 13 countries in eastern and southern Africa and represents the rest of the cases.

The WHO and its partners are targeting elimination of the gambiense form of the disease from all endemic countries by 2030.