Zombie Children in Africa

So, I was in Barnes and Noble the other day and before settling down to do some reading I was perusing the children's books, (as one does) with an friend of mine who is an education major. For her 'homework' she had to bring a children's book to class and read-aloud. So hard, right? Well, it took her for-frakkin-ever to pick out a damn book. As we were walking around I jokingly said that she should find a zombie book to read to her 'class' of 21 year olds. Two minutes after that I was looking along the far wall and find this:

And I was thrilled. And then kind of horrified. I read through it and snapped a pic and told myself that I would do some Googling of zombie children's lit when I got home for a blog post, which will now have to come later because through said Googling I found a much more pressing issue. (But, you should also know, that my friend didn't get this book. Major disappointment.)

Zombies Kids in Africa, specifically Uganda - where I graduated from high school, and still have friends and their families living there, so I HAD to look into it.

I typed "zombies for children" into the Google search bar - and much to my shock and surprise two stories pop up, one from a website called Daily Tech, and another from The Raw Story. I thought, this has to be some kind of joke, but both articles quoted a CNN article, and the CDC and the WHO. Upon further scrolling I found the CNN article, along with an article from the Daily Mail, a UK publication

"A mystery disease is turning an increasing number of children in east Africa into zombies."  This is the opening line of the Daily Mail article. If that doesn't grab your attention, I don't know what will. So just by skimming the opening lines and titles of each of these articles, I'm thoroughly terrified. I call my parents in Kenya and scream some mumble jumble nonsense about knives and, "Go for the head!" And also get the fuck out of the city and find your way home to Vermont. They have no idea what is going on, and found this all very entertaining. (I have a history of being somewhat hypochondriac-like in my family. I've diagnosed myself several times with meningitis, polio and black lung disease, among others.)

After my initial "Oh my God, its happening," freak-out, and first hand knowledge that zombie children aren't running rampant through Nairobi or Kampala, I turn back to the articles and read them all through with over some "Calming" Tazo tea. 

There is a disease called Nodding Disease, there are some conflicting reports on when and where it first popped up - but it's been in seen in other countries - Sudan and Tanzania, and there seems to be some confusion over Libya and Liberia. This disease gradually causes children to lose their mental capacities seen starting at the age of 5 or 6. They have seizures and some parents resort to tying up their children when they leave the house, because these 'zombified' kids have a nature to disappear and wander about for days. There have been reports of afflicted children starting fires in their villages, which seemed to have just a mishap of the clumsiness that comes along the disease. 

The CNN report says that it doesn't seem to be contagious, and there are a few hints at a cause to the disease - 93% of the cases are found in the same area as some parasitic worm (maybe he's the zombie culprit) and there also seems to be a nutritional factor, many of the cases present with a deficiency of Vitamin B6. The article also comes along with a dozen or so pictures that were pretty sad to scroll through. Many of the parents of these kids don't know what to do with them. Grown teenagers are put into cribs so that they can't harm others, or themselves during their seizures. One Ugandan parliament member bussed 25 of the afflicted kids into Kampala in hopes that by showing the government first hand how much these children were suffering, they would work harder to get to the root of it. 

Interestingly, there seems to be a link between food and the seizures. The Daily Tech article was edited by a Johns Hopkins public health student, who is studying Nodding Disease in Uganda right now. He disputes the CNN reporting that seizures can be caused by new foods, and claims that it's actually familiar foods that cause seizures. (Probably because they're sick of their regular meals and want some BRAINS - probably a new addition to their diet.) 

Anyways, after reading all the articles - here's the Raw Story article - it seems that this hasn't turned kids into mongrels in search of brains, and that it isn't spread through bites. BUT, I still think this could be the start of something. So load up on your Vitamin B6, please.