Sleeping sickness breakthrough

The drug was tested in Angola

Researchers have discovered a more practical, cost-saving treatment for the potentially fatal disease of sleeping sickness.

Sleeping sickness, caused by species of the parasite Trypanosoma brucei, has reached epidemic proportions in parts of Africa.

The first-choice drug for the treatment of this disease is melarsoprol, which was introduced in 1949.

The drug can cause severe side effects in some patients, and has to be administered over a long time period.

As a result many patients fail to complete their course of treatment, putting themselves at risk.

However, alternative treatments are prohibitively expensive, and still at preliminary stages of development.

Researchers from the Swiss Tropical Institute in Basel tested whether melarsoprol could be administered in a more patient-friendly way.

Angolan tests

They carried out tests in Angola on 500 people suffering from sleeping sickness.

Half the patients were given a standard 26-day course of melarsoprol, with a series of injections every eight days.

The rest were tested on a new schedule involving daily injections over a 10-day period.

It was found that the new 10-day schedule was equally as effective, and that fewer patients dropped out.

Writing in The Lancet medical journal, the authors say: "The new schedule has the potential to become widely used.

"The significantly reduced duration of treatment and hospitalisation, and the 30% saving of drug offer considerable economic and practical advantages, especially for regions with limited resources and high prevalence of the disease".

Lead researcher Dr Christian Burri told BBC News Online said a shorter hospital stay for sufferers would mean they would be able to resume work on the land much quicker - an issue of vital importance in poor areas.

"The duration of treatment has a direct impact on the economic situation of the whole family and in case of an epidemic situation on the whole community."

The parasite that causes sleeping sickness, or African Trypanosomiasis, is spread to humans when they are bitten by the tsetse fly.

The disease causes flu-like symptoms, inflammation of the brain, behavioural changes and coma.

An estimated 300,000 people have the disease and about 60 million people are at risk.