SLEEPING sickness, or trypanosomiasis, is a huge and growing problem in Africa with millions of people affected by the disease.

Murdoch University research into the development of safe, protective drugs to combat sleeping sickness has received a significant boost following a recent visit by Murdoch parasitologists to Kenya and South Africa, courtesy of the internationally-renowned Crawford Fund.

Murdoch Professor of Parasitology, Professor Andrew Thompson, the Division of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, said the visit to Nairobi’s International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and South Africa’s Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute (OVI) had already produced strong collaborative links and opportunities for training African scientists.

“Aspects of the new collaborative sleeping sickness research will be conducted hand-in-hand with existing Murdoch research into the closely-related parasite cryptosporidiosis, the same bug which caused chaos with the Sydney water supply two years ago,” said Professor Thompson.

“Murdoch-based research training into the molecular biological techniques surrounding cryptosporidiosis will be carried out in conjunction with several Nairobi scientists later this year as a direct result of our African visit.

“There is a significant area of need

for this work, particularly in relation to the AIDS epidemic in Africa where oppor-tunistic diseases such as cryptosporidiosis can quickly debilitate AIDS-affected people.”

He added that the current drugs used to treat people for sleeping sickness in Africa were generally ineffective and some had significant side-effects.

“I anticipate that a number of African postgraduates will also become involved with the Murdoch sleeping sickness research,” said Professor Thompson.

In another breakthrough, Murdoch Veterinary researcher Dr Simon Reid recently received a three-year, $400,000 grant from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) to investigate surra (animal trypanosomiasis) transmitted by march flies in southeast Asia.

“The main concern is that surra might spread to Australia where it would have a devastating effect on local livestock and native fauna that are highly susceptible,” said Dr Reid.

“As surra has not yet been widely recognised by the Australian livestock industry, the ACIAR funding is particularly welcome.”