International meeting on sleeping sickness

A five-day meeting of the International Scientific Council on the fight against sleeping sickness (trypanosomiasis) is due to take place in Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou at the beginning of October, PANA reported. At the 1-5 October meeting, expected to atttract over 300 delegates, Burkina Faso's President Blaise Compaore will launch the pan-African Tsetse fly and trypanosomiasis eradication campaign on behalf of the Organisation for African Unity. The campaign was instituted at an OAU summit meeting in the Zambian capital Lusaka in July. Sleeping sickness threatens over 60 million people in 36 countries of sub-Saharan Africa. Countries affected in West Africa include Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon Chad Cote D'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guinea, Mali and Togo, according to the World Health Organization.