Passive surveillance of human African trypanosomiasis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: clinical presentation, rapid diagnostic test results and reference laboratory test results (2017-2020)

In the last decade, the prevalence of Trypanosoma brucei gambiense human African trypanosomiasis (HAT) has fallen and HAT has been targeted for elimination. At low disease prevalence, integration of case finding into routine activities of peripheral health centres becomes crucial. However, HAT case detection by the peripheral health system with limited resources requires adapted diagnostic tests and test algorithms. The objective of the DiTECT-HAT-WP2 study was to determine the diagnostic performance and cost of rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) performed on clinical suspects in peripheral health centres, whether or not followed by serological and/or molecular tests on filter paper done at regional reference centres. DiTECT-HAT has been registered in clinicaltrials.gov under ID NCT03356665, and is part of the DiTECT-HAT project, funded by EDCTP2-Horizon 2020- European Union. The DiTECT-HAT-WP2 study was conducted in centres for diagnosis and treatment and in sites for serological screening in Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire and DR Congo. In these centres and sites, clinical suspects were tested with several commercially available RDTs for HAT. Clinical suspects with at least 1 RDT positive result, 1° underwent parasitological examination and 2° blood collection on filter paper for reference analysis in trypanolysis, LAMP, ELISA and real-time PCR in the regional reference laboratory. If the reference laboratory tests and parasitological examinations were all negative, the suspect was considered free of HAT. If at least 1 reference test was positive, parasitological examinations were repeated at least twice at three months interval, unless trypanosomes were detected. The current version of the dataset provide the DiTECT-HAT-WP2 study protocol in French and English, the informed consent form, and test protocols, a data dictionnary and the de-identified study data in excel and as csv file of DiTECT-HAT-WP2 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. DiTECT-HAT-WP2 data will be made available to qualified researchers upon request after signing a confidentiality agreement (Data use agreement template to be filled in included). Data requests may be sent to the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) data administrator ([e-mail]) and the authors.