These are the symptoms of Chagas disease human African trypanosomiasis (also called sleeping sickness) and leishmaniasis, respectively. Either way, this approach to drug discovery -- taking on multiple diseases at once -- is more cost-effective. When her team tested the newly identified compound in infected mice, levels of the parasite became undetectable for all three diseases. "You don't want anything that can target the same thing in humans and kill human cells," Myburgh said. But between them, these diseases infect 20 million people each year -- and kill more than 50,000 -- despite the available treatments.

Source: CNN August 09, 2016 12:11 UTC