Promising Drug in Development for Sleeping Sickness

The company Anacor Pharmaceuticals is making strides with its drug acoziborole, which is purported to cure the terrible disease sleeping sickness with a single dose of three pills.

The drug was invented in 2009, but recently won approval from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) after trials in Africa. The drug is an antiprotozoal compound, and the parasite Trypanasoma is one of its targets. The parasite is spread through the bite of the tsetse fly, and the resulting disease causes fever, headache, pain, and other symptoms leading up to more severe neurological damage and even death.

The disease has diminished in the last century through some treatment options and bite prevention tactics, but this new drug could stop it almost entirely.

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