In 2009, CDC received a request from Uganda’s Ministry of Health for help in studying Nodding Syndrome, the mysterious disease which was affecting young people in northern Uganda, a post-conflict area. The condition primarily affects children between 5-15 years of age and impairs both physical growth as well as cognitive development rendering the children almost entirely dependent on parents and caregivers. Today, despite the CDCs important progress in better understanding the disease, the cause of Nodding Syndrome remains unknown. CDC headquarters in the U.S. continue to study and run tests on specimens in the hopes of finding the cause and eventually a cure. To this end, a couple months ago, with the support of CDC and the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), a family of 10 from Lamwo that includes children with Nodding Syndrome traveled to NIH Headquarters in Washington for a week of intensive investigations. These 10 individuals were received at the NIH Clinical Center for a 2 week-long admission involving extensive neurologic and genetic testing. All costs for this trip and the testing undertaken were covered by CDC and NIH. It is our hope that, between the investigations at NIH and the studies at CDC Headquarters, we may soon have more answers than questions about this mysterious disease. You can learn more about our research and the visit by the family in Lamwo by reading the NIH directors blog at the following link: directorsblog.nih.gov/2014/06/03/from-uganda-to-nih-to-solve-a-seizure-mystery/
Posted on: Tue, 01 Jul 2014 04:28:06 +0000
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