Meningoencephalitis in chronic Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense infection of the white mouse.

A more recently isolated strain of T.b. rhodesiense (eatro 1989) induced a chronic infection in most of 180 intraperitoneally infected NMRI-mice, surviving 6 to 9 weeks on an average. A meningoencephalitis beginning with a meningitis one week after infection and being fully developed after 4 weeks was demonstrable by investigating 22 animals killed at random between 7 and 42 days after infection. The inflammatory reactions observed correspond to those known from the late stage of human trypanosomiasis in their nature and way of spreading. Hence, this infection seems to offer a suitable model for studying a human like meningoencephalitis and for screening of compounds for activity during the late stage of human sleeping sickness.