Trypanosoma -parasite of sleeping sickness

Trypanosoma

Trypanosomes infect a variety of hosts and cause various diseases, including the fatal human diseases sleeping sickness, caused by Trypanosoma brucei, and Chagas disease, caused by Trypanosoma cruzi.

Trypanosomiasis in humans progresses with the development of the trypanosome into a trypomastigote in the blood and into an amastigote in tissues

African trypanosomes” or “Old World trypanosomes” have two subspecies that are morphologically indistinguishable cause distinct disease patterns in humans: T. b. gambiense, causing chronic African trypanosomiasis (“West African sleeping sickness”) and T. b. rhodesiense, causing acute African trypanosomiasis (“East African sleeping sickness”). The third subspecies T. b. brucei is a parasite primarily of cattle and occasionally other animals, and under normal conditions does not infect humans.

The diagnosis rests upon demonstrating trypanosomes by microscopic examination of chancre fluid, lymph node aspirates, blood, bone marrow, or, in the late stages of infection, cerebrospinal fluid.

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