Research

Research in diagnosis

The most significant progress in diagnostics occurred in the late 1970 when the Card Agglutination Trypanosomiasis Test (CATT) was developed for serological screening. Unfortunately CATT is only applicable to T.b. gambiense infections. Since the 1980s the test has been progressively used for screening the population at risk in west and central Africa where the Gambiense form of the disease is prevalent. As no major advances were made since, CATT remains today the only serological test available.

For effective control and surveillance of sleeping sickness, new tests are needed. New diagnostic tests should be affordable, implementable with simple protocols at any health structure level requiring minimum training and equipment, allowing its easy execution by any health worker.

It should provide rapid and reliable results with optimal sensitivity and specificity, for an uncontroversial diagnosis of both forms of the disease. This should enable onset of immediate treatment, avoiding cumbersome parasitological examinations.

In addition, the tests should be stable at room temperature, requiring no refrigeration and having a reasonable volume for easy storage and transport.

Improved tests for staging are also needed. Stage markers in other body fluids such as serum, urine, or saliva would be ideal to avoid the invasive procedure of a lumbar puncture.