By Ilan Moss, Communications Manager, DNDi
In his keynote address last night, Bill Gates said that elimination of sleeping sickness could be possible in the next decade, if better treatments and diagnostics are introduced. Wilfried Mutombo, a medical doctor from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), is on the frontlines of this effort.
“When I started working as a doctor in the DRC, the only treatment for sleeping sickness was highly toxic and killed about 5 percent of patients, causing unbearable stress on us as doctors, and members of the community,” Dr. Mutombo says. “We now have safer treatment options and even better potential drugs are in clinical development.”
Transmitted by the tsetse fly, sleeping sickness is fatal without treatment and millions are still at risk in over 30 sub-Saharan African countries. The DRC is home to two-thirds of all cases.
06 novembro 2014
#IamTropMed: Wilfried Mutombo of the Democratic Republic of Congo
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