Juba, 11 April 2016 - In an effort to accelerate the elimination of HAT as a public health problem, the Ministry of Health and WHO committed to reinforce and coordinate actions towards harmonizing control strategies, elimination, and sustained surveillance  process of HAT.

Human African Trypanosomiasis (HAT), also known as sleeping sickness, is a parasitic disease that is fatal if left untreated. The disease is transmitted by the tsetse fly and is endemic to Sub Saharan Africa, where it mainly affects impoverished rural communities.

South Sudan is one of the countries most affected by sleeping sickness, with 3 000 cases being reported annually. Between 1998 and 2005, over 500 000 people were screened and more than 16 000 patients were treated. The sustained control efforts of the Ministry of Health, WHO and partners led to a significant decrease in the subsequent number of cases reported.

The decrease in prevalence resulted in most NGOs progressively stopping their activities after 2006; hence access to diagnosis and treatment has been considerably diminished, allowing sleeping sickness to regain ground, said Dr Samson Baba, the Director General for Primary Health Care at the Ministry of Health.

Following the departure of most NGOs in 2006, the comparison of control activity shows a 47% decrease in the number of people screened and a 71% reduction in the number of new cases that were reported.  Since then, WHO has intensified its support for HAT control through provision of technical assistance, drugs and screening reagents, personnel training, and logistics to strengthen HAT surveillance and control activities to eliminate the disease.

WHO is committed to implement an innovative strategy to expand and sustain control and surveillance activities using the best tools available to eliminate the disease as public health problem, said Dr Jose Franco Roman, WHO HAT expert.

HAT elimination will require more efforts, time and money; there is a need for a long-term commitment of donors and partners, to strengthen control activities of the country, to improve the surveillance of the disease with the adoption of integrating surveillance and control activities in to the primary health care system scheme and the subsequent Boma health initiative, said Dr Richard Lako, Director General of planning at the Ministry of Health.

The elimination of HAT was considered by the WHO Strategic and Technical Advisory Group on Neglected Tropical Diseases as a feasible goal, and included in WHO’s roadmap on neglected tropical diseases with a 2020 target date for its elimination as a public health problem.

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For more information, please contact:

Ms Jane Pita- +211-955536818;  pitaj [at] who.int 

Ms Jemila M. Ebrahim- +211-950450007; ebrahimj [at] who.int