Tenth international meeting on Trypanosoma evansi: report of the working group. Paris, 24 May 1989

Some epidemiological surveys have provided information on the incidence of Trypanosoma evansi infection among dromedaries in Mali, and among buffaloes in Java and Indonesia. The disease among camels has been reported again from Kazakhstan in the USSR, with the coexistence of T. evansi and Cephalopina titillator in animals which developed acute infection. The disease has been studied among horses in Venezuela and among buffaloes in Vietnam and Indonesia, and suspected among horses in Brazil. Diagnostic kits for rapid and reliable detection of T. evansi are being made available free of charge, upon request, by the institutes which have developed these new techniques, namely: detecting the parasite by agglutination-lysis; detecting antibody (by a modification of CATT); detecting antigen (by using monoclonal antibodies). Once these various diagnostic procedures developed by competent institutes have been evaluated and used widely, the next step will be to standardise the techniques and the antigens. Differential diagnosis of T. evansi and T. equiperdum is still difficult in the case of akinetoplastic strains. For improved evaluation of T. evansi isolates, a proposal has been made to form collections of complementary DNA (cDNA) with a view to exchanging these copies and the original strains. The advice of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature has been requested for definitive adoption of a binomial designation for the species T. evansi. With more extensive data on the pharmacology and pharmacokinetics of Cymelarsan and laboratory testing of a new trypanocide called "IMOL 881", research on trypanocides continues.