Releasing tsetse flies that carry genetically modified bacteria resistant to the parasite that causes sleeping sickness could eliminate the disease in Africa under certain conditions, a modelling study has shown.
African trypanosomiasis or sleeping sickness – caused when the parasite is transmitted between livestock and humans via tsetse fly bites – infects 30,000 people, and causes losses of US$1 billion from livestock production a year in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the study published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases last month (15 August).
Read the full, original story here: “Africa: GM Bacteria ‘Could Eliminate’ Sleeping Sickness”
