A small clinical trial in Uganda has found that a new combination treatment
using the drugs nifurtimox and eflornithine holds promise for African Sleeping
Sickness (human African trypanosomiasis, or HAT), a parasitic disease infecting
15,000 people each year.
The new trial, by Gerardo Priotto (Epicentre, Paris, France) and colleagues
at MSF and Epicentre, reports on a series of 48 patients treated with a
novel combination of nifurtimox (a drug registered for Chagas disease) and
eflornithine.
Despite the low sample size, the findings were promising: no cases of
treatment failure, no treatment terminations, and no HAT—or
treatment-related deaths.
