A new drug,
fexinidazole, cures all stages of the disease [African Sleeping Sickness] within 10 days reports today's
NYTimes:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/16/health/sleeping-sickness-africa-cure.html
It is in pill form and was approved by Europe's drug regulatory agency.
@FMMM1 and
@alex3619 discuss on another thread Ron Davis' gene expression study that compared ME/CFS to other illnesses and concluded African Sleeping Sickness was the closest match (Community Symposium, 2018).
The drug's chemistry/method of action looks interesting, perhaps someone can explain?
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29701144
Yea I've been thinking about this for a while i.e. why would ME/CFS has a similar gene expression to trypanosomiasis (African sleeping sickness)? The answer may lie in the reason for doing the gene expression study - it's a I haven't got a clue technique. You look at all known diseases, which have enough genetic data, and your study disease ME/CFS. This might help you to identify the disease mechanism.
It turns out that the gene expression study may support Phair's theory that tryptophan may be causal in ME/CFS. I've only looked briefly on the web but if you search for something like "kynurenine tryptophan African sleeping sickness" you'll see all the same things that turn up in ME/CFS. In fact some of those who post here had picked upon African sleeping sickness since the symptoms are similar. E.g.
@alex3619 became interested since reversal of the sleep/wake cycle occurs in African sleeping sickness and ME/CFS.
Unfortunately one of the best researchers out there Mandy Hornig, who had focused in on the kynurenine pathway of tryptophan, may not currently be researching it - see
@M Paine posts etc.
Regarding the new drug; Ron Davis's nano needle may be a possible way to test whether it is effective in ME/CFS.
Consider writing to your elected representative i.e. to request funding for ME/CFS research including the development of a diagnostic test.
I've written to the European Union Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) requesting that they lobby for funding for research into ME/CFS including the development of a diagnostic test [
https://forums.phoenixrising.me/ind...ch-theyre-working-for-you.61516/#post-1003111].
Currently the ENVI Committee is lobbying for increased funding for research into Lyme disease and the development of a diagnostic test.
In 2016 the European Commission [European Union civil service] said [regarding Lyme disease] that "
Both basic research and the development of new diagnostics, treatments and vaccines for Lyme borreliosis are funded by EU research and innovation framework programmes. The total EU contribution to such projects since 2007 amounts to EUR 33.9 million [US dollars]" [http://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2016-008631-ASW_EN.html].
ME/CFS received no funding from the European Union [
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2017-006901-ASW_EN.html].