Prevalence of human African trypanosomiasis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Human African Trypanosomiasis (HAT) is a major public health problem in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Active and passive surveillance for HAT is conducted but may underestimate the true prevalence of the disease. We used ELISA to screen 7,769 leftover dried blood spots from a nationall...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases
Main Authors: Dieudonne Mumba, Elaine Bohorquez, Jane Messina, Victor Kande, Steven M Taylor, Antoinette K Tshefu, Jeremie Muwonga, Melchior M Kashamuka, Michael Emch, Richard Tidwell, Philippe Büscher, Steven R Meshnick
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2011
Subjects:
Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine
RC955-962
Public aspects of medicine
RA1-1270
Arctic
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001246
https://doaj.org/article/f44a64ce085447469a4bc2be0f8c565d
Description
Summary:Human African Trypanosomiasis (HAT) is a major public health problem in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Active and passive surveillance for HAT is conducted but may underestimate the true prevalence of the disease. We used ELISA to screen 7,769 leftover dried blood spots from a nationally representative population-based survey, the 2007 Demographic and Health Survey. 26 samples were positive by ELISA. Three of these were also positive by trypanolysis and/or PCR. From these data, we estimate that there were 18,592 people with HAT (95% confidence interval, 4,883-32,302) in the DRC in 2007, slightly more than twice as many as were reported.

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