New Developments In The Treatment Of Late-Stage Human African Trypanosomiasis

Human African trypanosomiasis (African sleeping sickness) is a disease caused by various subspecies of the parasite Trypanosoma brucei and spread through an insect vector, the tsetse fly, in sub-Saharan Africa. Although only relatively small numbers of patients (estimated by the World Health Organization to be approximately 10 000 per annum) are diagnosed each year, all victims of this disease will progress to a second-stage central nervous system disease that is 100% fatal if untreated. Current treatment options for HAT are limited to old, toxic, and ineffective drugs that are difficult to administer in the disease endemic area, particularly for the second-stage disease. Consequently, there is an urgent need for the discovery and development of new agents to treat Stage 2 HAT. This chapter reviews some recent efforts in this area, in particular the discovery and development of a new class of novel boron-containing compounds, the benzoxaboroles.