A bizarre disease is killing thousands of youngsters each year, and more recently, it's claimed greater victims across Africa. Nodding disease is a term used to describe it. It generally affects children around the age of 5 or 4 years old and begins with occasional bouts of non-controlled nodding.
When the condition progresses into teens, the nodding typically develops into epileptic seizures and the sufferers lose their developmental ground and often become incapable of taking care of themselves, communicating, or preventing accidental death through burning or drowning. NGOs like Acholi Resilience are putting initiatives forward to save people from this syndrome.
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Since its first mention at the time of its discovery in Tanzania The often fatal illness has been blamed in various ways on pesticides, viruses as well as fungi, vitamin deficiencies in monkeys, as well as parasites.
Researchers haven't yet confirmed the possibility of vitamin B-6 deficiencies.
Certain people who have a specific genetic mutation that lowers B-6 levels suffer from severe epilepsy. While children who suffer from nodding syndrome don't have the lowest B-6 levels but the CDC team plans to add supplements in the upcoming clinical trial, which is also scheduled to evaluate anti-seizure medication.
The final answer may lie in several variables. "Epilepsy is usually multi-factorial," Michel Boussinesq, from the University of Montpellier, told Science. "Onchocerciasis may be a possible factor, but it's not enough to trigger this condition." Children who are lacking in vitamin D or suffer from other illnesses could be more vulnerable to parasite attacks.