Angola: Death by tsetse fly: an Angolan epidemic

Sleeping sickness, a vector-borne parasitic disease, is ravaging Angola, threatening a third of the population across 14 of the 18 provinces in the south-west African country which is still struggling to rebuild after a 27-year civil war that ended in April 2002. "The situation in Angola is alarming," said Ndinga Dieyi Dituvanga, a doctor and an official with the Institute for the Prevention of Trypanosomiasis, the scientific name for the disease, which is initially characterised by bouts of fever, headaches, pains in the joints and itching and affects both human beings and cattle.