A new drug which promises to revolutionise the treatment of sleeping sickness has been approved by regulators.

Around 65 million people living in sub-Saharan Africa are at risk of sleeping sickness, a deadly neglected tropical disease spread by tsetse flies. Fatal without treatment, sleeping sickness causes debilitating disruption of sleep patterns, uncontrollable aggression and psychosis.

“Sleeping sickness is a very traumatic disease,” said Dr Bernard Pécoul, executive director of the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi). “If it is not treated, patients will 100 per cent die.”

Current treatment is complicated and costly. It involves long hospital stays, invasive procedures and the transportation of specialist medication to remote places.

As the majority of cases are in impoverished, rural and sometimes dangerous regions, it is often impossible to provide the required care.

Now a new drug, fexinidazole, has been approved which experts say could transform treatment of the disease.

Taken once a day for 10 days in a simple tablet form, it treats the most common form of sleeping sickness, trypanosoma brucei gambiense. Trials show it to be effective against both the first and second stage of the illness.