Large swaths of northern Uganda are in the throes of an outbreak of a strange disease called "nodding syndrome", which causes children and adolescents to nod violently when they eat. Over a thousand cases were diagnosed from August to mid-December
Experts believe that the disease, which may be an unusual form of epilepsy, is associated with a parasitic worm that is also responsible for "river blindness." River blindness, or onchocerciasis, affects about 18 million people worldwide today, but most of the patients live in Africa.
The causative agent of this ailment is the helminth Onchocerca volvulus, the owner of which is only a person, and the carrier is female midges Simulium damnosum. Adult worms settle in human lymph nodes, where females give birth to many larvae (microfilariae), which then migrate under the epidermis of the skin, from where they can again enter the body of midges and, thus, continue the cycle of parasite development. Part of the microfilariae appears in the eyes of a person, penetrating into all tissues of the optic organ. In the eyeball, they cause inflammation, bleeding, and other complications that ultimately lead to loss of vision.
Almost all children with nodding syndrome live near rivers, which are considered a risk factor for river blindness. However, nematodes Onchocerca volvulus are often found in areas of Uganda where the nodding syndrome has not yet been recorded.
So far, medicine cannot offer any treatment for the nodding syndrome. The Ugandan Ministry of Health is using anticonvulsants to treat the symptoms of a mysterious ailment that is advancing in the meantime, with several cases already reported in the Republic of South Sudan.