Supporting research and innovation in human African trypanosomiasis

Disease elimination confronts us with old challenges plus some new ones. Our capacity to advance will be strengthened if new improved tools are developed and if our knowledge of the disease grows. WHO regularly convenes research and development agencies together with front-line workers to identify priority knowledge gaps and target profiles for new tools. 

Important knowledge gaps include the estimation of undetected cases and the epidemiological role of human asymptomatic carriers and animal reservoirs in maintaining transmission and re-emergence of HAT.

WHO effectively contributes to projects developing new simple and affordable diagnostic and treatment tools, fitting the elimination context.

WHO keeps a specimen biobank, available for diagnostic research, comprising more than 20 000 biological samples from confirmed cases, suspected cases and negative controls from 15 sites in six countries.

Conducting field clinical trials for HAT treatments presents steep challenges. With infrequent trials done, it is essential to standardize methods and safeguard data quality to permit direct comparability between different studies. WHO has developed, through experts’ consultations, a consensus framework for HAT clinical trials.

WHO maintains the HAT Atlas, a unique source of comprehensive data, which is provided free of charge to research groups working in spatio-temporal aspects and in mathematical modelling.