Desta, D: Acriflavin Inhibits the Proliferation of Trypanoso

In Africa, it is estimated that trypanosomiasis occurs in more than 37 Sub-Saharan countries covering more than a third of Africa s total area. The infection threatens an estimated 60 million people and about 50 million cattle. According to the World Health Organization (WHO, 2002), estimation about 500,000 new cases of human infection and 3 million deaths in cattle occur every year. The economic losses in cattle production alone are estimated to be about 1.2 billion U.S dollars a year. If this figure were extrapolated to the whole tsetse infested land, the total losses in terms of agricultural Gross Domestic Product, would amount to $ 4.75 billion dollars per year (WHO, 2002). As of now, there is no efficient and safe enough drug to be used as the first-line drug to fight trypanosomiasis (Jarvinen and Dalmasso, 1977; Fong et al., 1984; Odeika et al., 1994; Obexer et al., 1995; Gubler, 1998; Klingbeil and Englund, 2004). The urgent need for more selective and less toxic antitrypanosomiasis drug has stimulated this study of acriflavine as a possible antitrypanosomial drug.