Epilepsy

Habari za siku nyingi? It's been a while since I've posted anything. I have been approached by a researcher from CDC Atlanta about collaborating with the Ministry of Health in Tanzania and a group of researchers from the Universtiy of Innsbrook and Dr. Louis Jilek-Aall in studying an emerging phenomenon called "Nodding Disease". Nodding Disease is characterized as such as children often lose muscle tone in their necks when presented with either a plate of food, drink of cold water, or a bath in cold water. It is equivalent to having an epileptic seizure. As it is usually triggered by eating, a lot of these children are malnurished or even die young as they do not get a chance to eat before the seizure "nodding" is triggered. CDC has studied this already in Uganda and Southern Sudan as they are recent occurrences. Interestingly, in Tanzania, there has been one woman (Dr. Lousi Jilek-Aall) who has been following cases since the 1960s. For those who find interest in inspirational people, she is one. In Tanzania, epilepsy is often believed to be caused by "bad spirits". People who are affected often get no treatment and even get shunned from a community as they believe them to be afflicted by evil spirits. Dr. Jilek-Aall began the only epilepsy clinic in Tanzania in 1960 to educate the locals and to treat those affected by epilepsy. 50 years later, the clinic is still operational and she is still strongly supporting it and gathering financial and technical support for it at the age of 70 something years old. All of this is pending us getting in touch with everyone and setting up potential studies but it is exciting. If you want to learn more, here is a link: http://mahenge.wordpress.com/about/mahenge-epilepsy-clinic/

There is also a youtube video of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1szyYVuduu4