Risk for Human African Trypanosomiasis, Central Africa, 2000–2009 - Vol. 17 No. 12 - December 2011 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal - CDC

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Risk for Human African Trypanosomiasis, Central Africa, 2000–2009 - Vol. 17 No. 12 - December 2011 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal - CDC

Volume 17, Number 12—December 2011

Dispatch

Risk for Human African Trypanosomiasis, Central Africa, 2000–2009

Article Contents

• The Study
• Conclusions
• Acknowledgments
• References
• Figure
• Table 1
• Table 2
• Suggested Citation

Pere P. Simarro¹ , Giuliano Cecchi¹, José R. Franco, Massimo Paone, Eric M. Fèvre, Abdoulaye Diarra, José Antonio Ruiz Postigo, Raffaele C. Mattioli, and Jean G. Jannin

 

Author affiliations: World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland (P.P. Simarro, J.R. Franco, J.G. Jannin); Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome, Italy (G. Cecchi, M. Paone, R.C. Mattioli); University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK (E.M. Fèvre); World Health Organization, Brazzaville, Congo (A. Diarra); World Health Organization, Cairo, Egypt (J.A. Ruiz Postigo)

Suggested citation for this article

Abstract

Comprehensive georeference records for human African trypanosomiasis in Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon were combined with human population layers to estimate a kernel-smoothed relative risk function. Five risk categories were mapped, and ≈3.5 million persons were estimated to be at risk for this disease.

The most recent continental estimates of persons at risk for human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), also known as sleeping sickness, were published by the World Health Organization in 1998 (1). These estimates were provided on a country-by-country basis, and they were largely based on educated guesses and rough estimations of experts. Since that time, major progress has been made in HAT control and surveillance (2). Data collection and reporting have also substantially improved and increasingly include an explicit and accurate mapping component (3–6). The magnitude of the recent advances in HAT control and surveillance is such that up-to-date estimates of the number and distribution of persons at risk are urgently needed. The purpose of this study was to develop a method to estimate and map the risk for HAT in central Africa.

Suggested citation for this article: Simarro PP, Cecchi G, Franco JR, Paone M, Fèvre EM, Diarra A, et al. Risk for human African trypanosomaisis, central Africa, 2000–2009. Emerg Infect Dis [serial on the Internet]. 2011 Dec [date cited]. http://dx.doi.org/10.3201/eid1712.110921

DOI: 10.3201/eid1712.110921

¹These authors contributed equally to this article.