PADER DISTRICT, Uganda — A mysterious illness has killed 200 children in rural Uganda and has debilitated hundreds more, leaving doctors scrambling to find its cause and cure.
Nodding disease grips children by seizures in which their heads move up and down. The ailment prevents them from eating properly and many afflicted children become stunted physically and mentally.
Morrish Okwonga, 9, and Agnes Akun, 15, have nodding disease and they are noticeably quiet and listless as they sit under a mango tree by their family’s hut in northern Uganda.
“They don’t look so happy like the normal children," said their father, John Anywar. "They have changed so much. Sometimes they look like they are running mad.”
Agnes and Morrish’s dirt-stained clothes hang loosely off their scrawny bodies. Agnes contracted the disease in 2007 and her brother in 2009. Since they often get seizures that prevent them from eating, they are malnourished and small for their ages.Read on...
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