Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-fwgfc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-11T13:14:03.157Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Ecology of Epidemic Sleeping Sickness II.—The Effects of an Epidemic.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 July 2009

K. R. S. Morris
Affiliation:
Director of Tsetse Control, Gold Coast.

Extract

The most obvious effect of sleeping sickness is depopulation, which can be occasioned directly, through mortality from the disease, and indirectly, through a lowering of the reproductive rate of a community because of induced sterility and increased infant mortality.

The problem was studied in the north of the Gold Coast and the neighbouring French Upper Volta Territory, where severe epidemics have occurred, in localised form since at least the middle of last century, and in widespread form during the past 30 years. The vectors have been the riverine tsetse Glossina palpalis and G.tachinoides.

A close correlation was found to exist between the incidence of sleeping sickness and the population trend with a marked depopulating effect coming in at infection rates above 3 per cent. It was also found that both the rates of trypanosomiasis infection and the extent of depopulation showed closely similar relationships to the proximity of affected villages to the nearest flybelt.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1952

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Fairbairn, H. (1948). Sleeping sickness in Tanganyika Territory, 19221946. — Trop. Dis. Bull., 45, pp. 117.Google Scholar
Harding, R. D.. (1940). The influence of sleeping sickness on mortality in two districts in Northern Nigeria. — Trans. R. Soc. trop. Med. Hyg., 33, pp. 483500.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, C. H. N. (1933). On an advance of tsetse–fly in Central Tanganyika. — Trans. R. ent. Soc. Lond., 81, pp. 205221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jamot, E. (1929). La maladie du sommeil au Cameroun en janvier. 1929. — Bull. Soc. Path. éxot., 22, pp. 473496.Google Scholar
Lester, H. M. O. (1945). Further progress in the control of sleeping sickness in Nigeria. — Trans. R. Soc. trop. Med. Hyg.., 38, pp. 425444.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Maclean, G. (1929). The relationship between economic development & Rhodesian sleeping sickness in Tanganyika Territory. — Ann. trop. Med. Parasit., 23, pp. 3746.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mcletchie, J. L. (1948). The control of sleeping sickness in Nigeria. — Trans. R. Soc. trop. Med. Hyg., 41, pp. 445470.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morris, K. R. S. (1946). The control of trypanosomiasis by entomological means. — Bull ent. Res., 37, pp. 201250.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morris, K. R. S. (1949). Planning the control of sleeping sickness. — Trans. R. Soc. trop. Med. Hyg., 43, pp. 165198.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morris, K. R. S. (1951). The ecology of sleeping sickness. I. — The significance of location. — Bull. ent. Res., 42, pp. 427443.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sicé, A. (1937). La trypanosomiase humaine en Afrique intertropicale, p. 76. Paris, Vigot.Google Scholar
Swynnerton, C. F. M. (1923). The entomological aspects of an outbreak of sleeping sickness near Mwanza, Tanganyika Territory. — Bull. ent. Res., 13, pp. 317370.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swynnerton, C. F. M. (1925). The tsetse–fly problem in the Nzega sub–district, Tanganyika Territory.— Bull. ent. Res., 16, pp. 99109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar