Mysterious nodding disease afflicts young Ugandans

Your Health Matters

In this photo taken Monday Feb. 20, 2012, a mother shows the burnt arm of her child suffering from nodding disease at their home in the Kitgum district, Uganda. Uganda this week hosts a four-day international conference on nodding syndrome that health officials believe will lead to a clearer understanding of the mysterious disease. The disease is calling nodding syndrome, or nodding head disease, because those who have it nod their heads and sometimes go into epileptic-like fits. The disease stunts children and destroys their cognition, rendering them unable to perform small tasks. (AP Photo/Stephen Wandera)Augustine Languna's eyes welled up and then his voice failed as he recalled the drowning death of his 16-year-old daughter. The women near him looked away, respectfully avoiding the kind of raw emotion that the head of the family rarely displayed.

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