trypanosomiasis

Any of several debilitating long-term diseases caused by a trypanosome (protozoan of the genus Trypanosoma). They include sleeping sickness in Africa, transmitted by the bites of tsetse flies, and Chagas's disease in Central and South America, spread by assassin bugs.

Trypanosomes can live in the bloodstream of humans and other vertebrates. Millions of people are affected in warmer regions of the world; the diseases also affect cattle, horses, and wild animals, which form a reservoir of infection.