Experiments to ascertain if antelope may act as a reservoir of the virus of sleeping sickness (Trypanosoma gambiense)

Abstract

The question of a reservoir of the virus of Sleeping Sickness, other than man and his domestic animals, is of the utmost importance. Now man and the domestic animals have been removed from the Lakeshore of the mainland for some two and a half years, and from the islands since September, 1909. The effect of this depopulation has been to make a two mile area along the northern shores of the Lake virtually a game reserve, in which water-buck, bush-buck, read-buck, Speke's Tragelaphus , hippopotami, wild pig, and other large game abound. The game water freely at the Lake-shore, and small herds of antelope may frequently be seen grazing on the grassy hillsides overlooking the Lake.