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NEWS > HEALTH > NODDING DISEASE IN UGANDA LIKELY UNRELATED TO ROCK AND ROLL INFESTATION
NODDING DISEASE IN UGANDA LIKELY UNRELATED TO ROCK AND ROLL INFESTATION
December 27 2011
Kampala, Uganda – Every now and then a disease comes along that just downright baffles medical science. Diseases that have strange and seemingly irrational symptoms and seem to only affect small groups of people. For all our victories against ailments such as cancer and AIDS, those strange happenings are reminders that the world is still a mysterious place and there is still a great deal we do not know.
Such an event has started to appear throughout Uganda in recent months. In that case the symptoms are certainly strange, a violent nodding of the head after eating. While odd and perhaps even funny, researchers aren’t laughing at the dozens deaths that have come as a result of the ailment.
Now though, there appears to have been a breakthrough with researchers tracking down a possible culprit behind the disease, a parasitic worm that also causes river blindness, shredding the previous theory that people across the country just got a song in there head and were consumed by the rhythm.
“We know that [Onchocerca volvulus] is involved in some way, but it is a little puzzling because [the worm] is fairly common in areas that do not have nodding disease,“ said Scott Dowell of the CDC.
Despite the possible diagnosis, other symptoms of the disease such as dancing and devil horns are less easily explained.
At least 1000 people have been affected by the disease and 66, mostly teens and children who are generally more susceptible to the effects of Rock and Roll music, have died.
“This is certainly one of the stranger diseases to come out of Africa and as everyone knows, Africa has all kinds of diseases both normal and very, very strange. If it weren’t for all the people dying it would actually be a pretty cool disease, but people are dying and that just isn’t cool, not at all really,” said Scrape TV Health analyst Rebecca Phelps. “Look, people sell their soul to rock and roll all the time but that’s really more of a saying, not an actual thing. Generally people don’t die while listening to music and so that alone, the sheer number of deaths, proves that there is some type of biological component to this ailment, not just beings slaves to the rhythm which makes it harder to resolve.”
Rock and Roll is not all that common in the regions affected by the disease, which could explain why it is sticking in people’s heads.
“It is very likely that something is happening here outside a sense of rhythm. People love music all over the world but rarely do we see death on this scale. I would say that they are right, that it is a disease of some sort, and they should continue to look at that as a source of the disease rather than some musical component,” continued Phelps. “Rock and Roll also wouldn’t explain the other symptoms like sudden unconsciousness, bodies stopping growth, or being all dazed. Well, maybe the latter one but nothing else. Generally rock and roll affects the soul but not the body so much and that alone is reason to look for a biological reason for these events.”
As a precaution, the Sudanese government has banned all Rock and Roll music from the area though little change has been seen as yet.
Lauren Hebert, Health Correspondent
NEWS > HEALTH > NODDING DISEASE IN UGANDA LIKELY UNRELATED TO ROCK AND ROLL INFESTATION
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