Bölët Mouna means ‘sleeping sickness no more’ in Guinea’s national language Susu and tells the story of how research, innovation, and science are ending the the nightmare of sleeping sickness in Guinea.
In January 2025 Guinea announced that it had eliminated sleeping sickness as a public health problem. This is the first disease that the country can claim to have eliminated and a major milestone in the Africa-wide campaign to eliminate sleeping sickness.
The National Sleeping Sickness Programme in Guinea and its international partners – among them the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD), DNDi, and the Institute Pasteur – have used all the tools at their disposal to achieve this milestone: small ‘tiny traps’ that dot the mangrove coasts of Guinea, rapid diagnostic tests, and revolutionary new medicines that are changing how doctors treat their patients.
