A team from Uganda and the United Kingdom analysed the incidence of the serious Rhodesian form of sleeping sickness, which is carried by cattle, in two newly affected districts (nearly 700 villages). They confirmed that villages close to livestock markets have higher rates of the disease.

The research shows that livestock markets are a "major risk" to disease control, according to Sue Welburn, professor of medical and veterinary molecular epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh in the UK, and co-author of the research.

There are two forms of sleeping sickness, or African trypanosomiasis — the Rhodesian form, common in eastern Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Gambian form which affects western and central Africa. Because diagnosis and treatment of the two forms are so different, treatment could be compromised — with patients receiving the wrong drugs for example — if the diseases coexisted.

To prevent the convergence, said Joseph Maitima, a senior scientist with the Kenya-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), it is necessary to restrain each of the two in the areas they are endemic to by treating livestock before they are moved for sale or for pastures.

The research was published in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases (December, 2009).