How the sleeping sickness protozoan evades capture

history provides examples of robbers who were masters at disguise. Charles Peace of 19th century England was one. A scholarly gentleman during the day and a burglar by nightfall, he embarrassed even the Scotland Yard at its inability to apprehend him. Science provided him with a rival.

The protozoan Trypanosoma brucei, which causes African sleeping sickness in humans is good at disguises. Transmitted by the blood-sucking tsetse fly into a host