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Kala Azar; a neglected tropical disease tormenting Karamoja
By DAVID MAFABI
Posted Wednesday, December 16 2015 at 12:36
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With an emaciated body, Cheprai Ngolenyang, 13, turns uneasily on his mat, grimacing from the pain he is going through.
Ngolenyang has lost weight due to loss of appetite. With his prominent cheekbones and sunken eyes, he appears badly undernourished.
During a visit to Ngolenyang?s home in Akorkeya village, Abilibyeyi parish in Loro Sub-county in Amudat, his father Joseph Arupe Tomtomu claims his son has been bewitched at the anthill.
When children start to lose weight and become sickly in this area, it is believed that the children will not heal because they are suffering from the disease of the anthill.
Three days after Daily Monitor?s visit to his home village, Ngolenyang died at the Kala azar Treament Centre in Amudat.
Ngolenyang?s is not an isolated case. Many children who look after goats and cattle in Amudat, Nakapiripirit, Napak, Kotido, Kaabong and parts of Katakwi and Amuria [cattle corridor], especially those who live in mud and wattle houses are suffering from the same disease?.
According to Patricia Namohe, an LC I secretary for women affairs in Amudat Town, who lost two children to the same disease, most children who suffer from this disease usually die before making 15 years.
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