Health experts from seven central African countries have called for coordinated action against sleeping sickness, warning that the disease is on the rise in the region.

The experts -- from Angola, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Chad - said during a meeting in the Central African Republic that up to 300,000 people are infected by the disease every year in the region.

They say that not enough has been done in the last decade to combat the tsetse fly, which carries the parasite responsible for sleeping sickness.

Ministers from the seven countries are expected to sign an agreement on Friday on ways of cooperating to fight the disease.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service