The AMREF-South Sudan has appealed for the government’s response to the increasing cases of epilepsy in Western Equatoria State.
AMREF Representative in Western Equatoria State Sub-Office, Tiongo Moses, said the support from the government was highly needed in stopping the worrying disease.
“We need to put much support because most of the people there do not know the disease and they end up going for witchcraft [and have failed to treat it],” said Tiongo during the international day of mental health at Juba Teaching Hospital.
Epilepsy is a central nervous system disorder in which the brain activity becomes abnormal causing unusual behavior and other health senseless related complications.
The symptoms of epilepsy include uncontrollable jerking and shaking, losing awareness and staring blankly into space, becoming stiff, strange sensations such as feeling in the tummy and collapsing.
Recently, cases of nodding disease were reported among children in Western Equatoria State.
Nodding diseases according to health experts in the form of epilepsy that affects only children between the age of 14 to16 years.
State Minister of Health, James Aduvoki, told The City Review on Tuesday that he heard about the nodding disease but they need to inquire more information from the national Ministry of Health.
The WES has been on the headline over health concerns, with one of the latest being a botched deworming of pupils in Maridi.
Last week, Vice President for Service Cluster Hussein Abdelbagi headed a delegation to Western Equatoria to investigate the recent incident of botched deworming that left 135 pupils hospitalized in Maridi Hospital.
The pupils were admitted after allegedly receiving excess deworming tablets known as Praziquantel during a mass drug campaign by the Ministry of Health and World Health Organization (WHO) against bilharzia in Ibba County in Western Equatoria State.
Currently, the Ministry of Health is implementing the first phase of the mass drug campaign project in seven of ten counties in Western Equatoria State, three counties in Eastern Equatoria, and one county in Western Bahr el Ghazal State.