SURAMIN SODIUM

synthetic drug used in medicine, especially in the treatment of African sleeping sickness (African trypanosomiasis), a disease caused by an infestation of the protozoan Trypanosoma spread by the tsetse fly. Suramin sodium is administered by intravenous injection. It is most effective when given in the early stages of the disease because it attacks the Trypanosoma organisms as they circulate in the bloodstream and concentrate in the lymph nodes. (At a later stage they invade the spinal fluid.)