Malawi

In 2006, Addenbrooke's Abroad was approached by Michael and Elspeth King, who live part of the year in Cambridge and part in the Rumphi district of Malawi. The Kings made us aware of an apparent resurgence of sleeping sickness in Malawi, where tsetse flies breed in game reserves.

In March 2007, Malcolm Kerr-Muir organised a field trip to Rumphi together with two expert colleagues from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine to look into what might be done.

A project led by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine is now underway. Bertie Squire and Wendi Bailey of the Liverpool School of the Tropical Medicine made a further visit to Rumphi in September, to advise on diagnostic lab procedures and the reporting of patients, and to visit the local villages to show medical assistants how to take blood samples.

The next step is to undertake a pilot survey of the 7 or 8 villages around the Rumphi game park to establish the incidence of infection.

What do we need?

• We cannot run our pilot ethically without offering to treat those diagnosed with sleeping sickness – and we need money for this!

• We need to install a number of tsetse fly traps at a cost of about £100 each

We need medical students who would like to do their electives as participants in the survey of the incidence of sleeping sickness in the whole of NW Malawi, alongside students from the Liverpool School who would survey tsetse habitats and infestation.