sleeping sickness

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun An often fatal, endemic infectious disease occurring in sub-Saharan Africa, caused by either of two trypanosomes (Trypanosoma brucei subsp. gambiense or T. brucei subsp. rhodesiense) transmitted by tsetse flies and characterized by fever, severe headache, and lymph node swelling in the early stages, followed by extreme weakness, sleepiness, and deep coma.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun pathology An endemic infectious disease of humans and animals in tropical Africa, caused by a parasitic trypanosome, transmitted by the tsetse fly and characterized by fever, severe headache, joint pains and lymph node swelling in the early stages, followed by a neurological phase of extreme weakness, sleepiness, and deep coma leading to death.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun an encephalitis that was epidemic between 1915 and 1926; symptoms include paralysis of the extrinsic eye muscle and extreme muscular weakness