LY Med's video: Nobel Prize Explained: The Frightening Sleeping Sickness

Want to support the channel? Be a patron at: https://www.patreon.com/LYMED Subscribe for future videos in this series! When it comes to infectious diseases, there are 5 major groups of organisms. These are: Bacteria, Fungi, Viruses, Helminths and Protozoans. Now this video is all about protozoans. Protozoas are single cell organisms that can be independent or dependent on other organisms (parasite). First described in 1818, they bounced around from classification to classification until they arrived at their own. Protozoans are some pretty unique organisms. They all reproduce asexually. Some life in two-phase life cycle, one where they grow and reproduce, and another stage where they lay as dormant cyst to survive harsh conditions. Protozoans are found everywhere. Free living protozoans are seen commonly in fresh and salt water, soil, mosses. The big baddy - malaria is caused by the parasitic protozoan plasmodium. That was talked about in another video and will continue to be talked about in future videos – because malaria is awful. Another protozoan caused disease is African trypanosomiasis - quite a mouthful. However its colloquically known as slieeping sickness.Sleeping sickness is caused by the protozoan trypanosoma brucei, and that’s what gives it the name (iasis- morbid condition). Where as malaria’s plasmodium is spread by the alophes? Mosquito, sleeping sickness is spread by infected tsetse flies. The disease affects mainly sub-Saharan arica and infects around 10,000 people a year, with the death toll ranging from 2-4k. However, concerted prevention methods like bug repellent and long sleeve clothing, sand early detection and treatment has reduced that down from the tens of thousands in the 1990s. At first infection, a patient exhibits flu like symptoms – you know, fever, headaches, joint pains. However they don’t call it African flu-like illness. No, as the disease progresses, the parasite invades the blood brain barrier and affects the brain patients develop confusion, numbness and disorganized sleep – with episodes of daytime sleep and periods of wakefulness.. coupled with possible psychosis and you have a nightmare factory. Treating it early is imperative and if untreated, it typically results in death. So yeah, horrible diseases that protozoans can cause, and for a long time we didn’t know that protozoans were responsible for these disease. Enter Charles laveran. Charles Laveran was a French doctor born in 1845. Son of a doctor, he followed in his fathers profession and entered medical school. His chief research was in malaria. Now in a previous video, we discussed how a Nobel Prize was reward on the identification of the life cycle and transmission through the mosquito, but the exact organism was less identified. He studied the organs and blood of malaria pt. The only common factor was that they all shared a pigmented granule in their blood. This led him to believe Laveran believed it to be due to a blood parasite. So he found someone who was just infected and quickly drew and examined the blood and actually saw plasmodium moving. He would follow similar experiments on protozoans such as trypnaosimais. For his discovery of protozoans and their role in malaria and sleeping sickness, he was awarded the nobel prize in 1907. Disclaimer: These videos do not provide medical advice and are for informational purposes only. The videos are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of a qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read or seen in any LY Med video.