Abstract

Y. M Adeoye and A. F Oluwole

Sleeping sickness is a vector-borne parasitic disease with variable, non-specific and inconstant symptoms. Thus, clinical signs are insufficient for diagnosis. Definite diagnosis relies on evidence demonstration of trypanosome in body fluids through parasitological techniques. For reasons related to costs, workload and technical incapacities, these technics are not always performed and sleeping sickness examination is thus limited to serological and clinical investigations. We report a false alarm due to incorrect diagnosis about a sudden outbreak of sleeping sickness in a focus under control. This report shows that inadequate diagnosis methods can lead to downward and upward errors in the prevalence of a disease. There is a need to reinforce material and technical capacities of health centers in endemic areas.