In northern Uganda, children are falling victim to a mysterious disease, loosely known as “Nodding disease,” that has confounded health officials. When a child is afflicted with the disease, one of the most noticeable symptoms is that they appear to be nodding off, eyes closing and head drifting downward, even though they may not be tired.
Over time, victims often get much worse, falling down and injuring themselves, losing cognitive ability and experiencing stunted growth. The disease often makes school too difficult for those afflicted, and they drop out. They are more susceptible to accidents, such as losing consciousness and falling into a cooking fire or drowning. Some die of infections that strike the weak or malnourished. Some may even be abandoned by their families.
Dr. Emmanuel Tenywa of the World Health Organization said “Within the communities some of the parents have thrown their children onto the streets. They say they are tired. For how long will they be looking after these children? If you have seen these cases in their homes, you would cry when you look at them.” William Oyet, a government health officer in the district, says “[The disease] can start anywhere, and the whole people in the village are worried because any time, any day, your kid will start nodding.”
Despite their best efforts to find the cause of this condition, experts from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta are at a loss. Dr. Scott Dowell, from the CDC’s Division of Disease Detection Emergency Response, says they’re not only baffled by the cause of the disease, they don’t know why it mainly affects children. “It really is very tightly clustered between five and 15 years of age,” he explained.
Eating food seems to spark bouts of nodding and sometimes seizures, which may explain why many of the affected children are malnourished. The episodes can be controlled with epilepsy drugs, but they do not cure the condition.
Dowell of the CDC expessed his frustration. “I wish we knew [what is causing the disease]. We know now from the most recent investigation that it is a brain disease. There’s clearly something wrong with the brains of these kids who have it. We’ve documented by MRI scans that the brains have some atrophy and by EEG that the brain waves are abnormal. In fact some of the kids with nodding have almost continuous seizure activity although they appear fairly normal…We understand the path of physiology of nodding but we still don’t know what causes it.”
The WHO’s Dr. Emmanuel Tenywa mentions other clues, such as his observation that all the affected children have onchocerciasis (a parasitic condition that can cause blindness). Tenywa cites that as a starting point, but elaborates “…the whole issue is now if you are infected with onchocerciasis, how does it cross the brain barrier to go into the brain, and what damage does it exactly do? These are the things which we are trying to understand.”
Onchocerciasis is common in many African countries, so one must wonder why nodding disease doesn’t appear elsewhere. It’s only been found in small pockets of northern Uganda, Sudan and Tanzania so far, but the number of cases is increasing. The fear is that it could spread to more areas, creating a greater sense of urgency in the health community. In Uganda, the urgency and desperation are already there.
http://diseasewiki.info/
Over time, victims often get much worse, falling down and injuring themselves, losing cognitive ability and experiencing stunted growth. The disease often makes school too difficult for those afflicted, and they drop out. They are more susceptible to accidents, such as losing consciousness and falling into a cooking fire or drowning. Some die of infections that strike the weak or malnourished. Some may even be abandoned by their families.
Dr. Emmanuel Tenywa of the World Health Organization said “Within the communities some of the parents have thrown their children onto the streets. They say they are tired. For how long will they be looking after these children? If you have seen these cases in their homes, you would cry when you look at them.” William Oyet, a government health officer in the district, says “[The disease] can start anywhere, and the whole people in the village are worried because any time, any day, your kid will start nodding.”
Despite their best efforts to find the cause of this condition, experts from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta are at a loss. Dr. Scott Dowell, from the CDC’s Division of Disease Detection Emergency Response, says they’re not only baffled by the cause of the disease, they don’t know why it mainly affects children. “It really is very tightly clustered between five and 15 years of age,” he explained.
Eating food seems to spark bouts of nodding and sometimes seizures, which may explain why many of the affected children are malnourished. The episodes can be controlled with epilepsy drugs, but they do not cure the condition.
Dowell of the CDC expessed his frustration. “I wish we knew [what is causing the disease]. We know now from the most recent investigation that it is a brain disease. There’s clearly something wrong with the brains of these kids who have it. We’ve documented by MRI scans that the brains have some atrophy and by EEG that the brain waves are abnormal. In fact some of the kids with nodding have almost continuous seizure activity although they appear fairly normal…We understand the path of physiology of nodding but we still don’t know what causes it.”
The WHO’s Dr. Emmanuel Tenywa mentions other clues, such as his observation that all the affected children have onchocerciasis (a parasitic condition that can cause blindness). Tenywa cites that as a starting point, but elaborates “…the whole issue is now if you are infected with onchocerciasis, how does it cross the brain barrier to go into the brain, and what damage does it exactly do? These are the things which we are trying to understand.”
Onchocerciasis is common in many African countries, so one must wonder why nodding disease doesn’t appear elsewhere. It’s only been found in small pockets of northern Uganda, Sudan and Tanzania so far, but the number of cases is increasing. The fear is that it could spread to more areas, creating a greater sense of urgency in the health community. In Uganda, the urgency and desperation are already there.
http://diseasewiki.info/
