How A Warlord’s Legacy Has Thwarted Relief For A Mysterious Disease In Uganda

At least 3,000 children have a baffling seizure disorder. For many, it’s a reminder of the years of brutal unrest.
TUMANGO, Uganda – Nurse Oweka Johnson pulls his goggles down onto his face and revs the engine of the motorbike, ready to roar off into the dust.

Each day Johnson drives far out into the bush of northern Uganda to provide lifesaving health care to scores of children suffering from a baffling condition known as nodding syndrome.

The neurological disorder is often ignored, as many of the thousands of children affected live in Uganda’s remote north, a land at peace but struggling with the legacy of long years of civil war. It’s partly because of the area’s remoteness that the causes of the syndrome remain a mystery.

Though limited in its spread, nodding syndrome is devastating to the tiny communities that are affected. Scientists first recorded cases of nodding syndrome in Tanzania in the 1960s, but it is not clear whether that outbreak is related to the one in Uganda. (Neighboring South Sudan has also reported cases, but the ongoing conflict there makes the extent difficult to assess.)

Photographer Sumy Sadurni and I had come to find out more about what was behind a strange syndrome that has left thousands of children crippled and in pain. And joining Johnson on motorbikes was the only way to reach the remote farms at the end of narrow tracks.
“I bring them the anti-convulsion drugs,” Johnson shouts, as clouds of orange dust rise high into the air.

Without these pills, the children would soon die from the intense seizures. Nodding syndrome has no known cure.

Joe Otoo, a 59-year old volunteer health worker, claims to be the first person to report Ugandan cases of the disease.

Source: huffingtonpost