Human African Trypaniosomiasis (HAT) or sleeping sickness is an old disease to be now considered as reemergent. HAT is endemic in 36 sub-Saharan African countries, in areas where tsetse flies are found. The public health importance of HAT is underestimated, but the disease causes severe social disruption in many rural areas. Along the past fifteen years, numerous studies were made, and now, the mechanisms involved in the disease pathogenesis and in the characteristics of sleep-wake disruption become to be better understood. But, since 50 years, when current drugs were introduced, problems...

La trypanosomose humaine africaine (maladie du sommeil) est due a la piqure de la glossine (mouche tse-tse) qui transmet a l'homme Trypanosoma brucei (T. b.) gambiense en Afrique de l'Ouest et Centrale ou T. b. rhodesiense, en Afrique de l'Est. La maladie evolue du stade 1 lymphaticosanguin au stade 2 meningo-encephalitique, apres penetration du trypanosome dans le systeme nerveux central. Non traite, le patient meurt en quelques mois. Le traitement du stade 1 a T. b. gambiense par la pentamidine pose peu de problemes. Par contre, celui du stade 2 fait appel a des molecules toxiques...