A devastating illness rocked Uganda, then disappeared. Disabled children — and a mystery — remain

Two decades ago, in a small pocket of Northern Uganda, something peculiar and tragic started happening. Children began suffering seizures, not just occasionally but numerous times a day. Their neck muscles would go temporarily limp, causing their heads to bob.

The illness came to be called nodding syndrome. Nobody knew where it came from, but it devastated many of its victims, causing severe developmental delays and psychiatric disturbances. Many died from having seizures at unfortunate moments that resulted in burns, falls, or drownings.

Then it disappeared, just as mysteriously. No new cases have been reported since 2015, according to the Ministry of Health.

But the outbreak aged 5-18, but in certain districts the . It hasn’t helped that a nonprofit that operated two clinics that fed and treated many of the kids ran out of money and shut down in 2017.