Feature Health & Medicine

Sleeping sickness is nearing elimination. An experimental drug could help

Clinical trials of acoziborole are under way in sub-Saharan Africa

photo of Wilfried Mutombo Kalonji looking at a slide under a microscope as another scientist stands in the background

Physician Wilfried Mutombo Kalonji, shown here at the Bandundu Hospital sleeping sickness ward in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is leading efforts to coordinate clinical trials for a new drug to treat the disease.

XAVIER VAHED/DNDI

By Meghan Rosen

The patient arrived at the hospital one hot night in Masi-Manimba, an agricultural town unfurled along the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Lukula River.