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Showing posts with label zombies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label zombies. Show all posts
Monday, June 18, 2012
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Mysterious ‘zombie’ disease afflicts thousands of Ugandan children
By David Ferguson - RAW Story
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Agnes Apio has to tie up her son Francis before she can leave the house. In his state, he is a danger to himself. Where once he walked and talked like a normal child, now he is only able to drag himself along in the dirt. Francis is suffering from “Nodding Disease,” a brain disorder that,according to CNN, afflicts at least 3,000 children in northern Uganda, leaving them physically stunted and severely mentally disabled.
“I feel dark in my heart,” Apio says as waves flies away from her son’s face and mops up his urine after a seizure, “This boy has become nothing.”
“Reportedly the children gnaw at their fabric restraints, like a rabid animals,” says The Daily Tech. The article calls them “zombie children,” having “no cure” and “no future.”
First the victims become restless, can’t concentrate. They say they have trouble thinking. Then comes the nodding, an uncontrollable dipping of the head that presages the disease’s debilitating epilepsy-like seizures. It is this nodding motion that gives the illness its name.
Nodding Disease first attacks the nervous system, then the brain. As the epilepsy-like seizures progress and worsen, the children become less and less like themselves, and more and more distant and blank. Eventually the brain stops developing and the victims’ bodies stop growing. So far, no patients have recovered.
Grace Lagat also has to tie up her children in order to leave the house. Daughter Pauline, 13, and son Thomas are bound hand and foot to keep them from shuffling away and getting lost. Pauline recently disappeared for five days.
Experts are baffled as to what causes the disease, which only occurs in children. Early findings suggest a confluence of the presence of the black fly-borne parasitic worm Onchocerca Volvulus, which causes river blindness, and acute vitamin B6 deficiency.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, onset usually takes place at the age of five or six and progresses rapidly, leaving the victims severely mentally and physically handicapped within a couple of years.
Victims can wander off and disappear. Some 200 “secondary deaths” have been blamed on fires and accidents caused by children with the disease.
Physicians and workers with the Ugandan Red Cross are frustrated by what they see as a lack of urgency in the government’s handling of the disease. After months of lagging, officials have only begun an official tally of cases within the last two weeks.
The situation was already dire when a team from the World Health Organization visited northern Uganda in 2009. CNN quotes one doctor from the team, Dr. Joaquin Saweka as saying, “It was quite desperate, I can tell you. Imagine being surrounded by 26 children and 12 of them showing signs of this. The attitude was to quickly find a solution to the problem.”
Solutions, however, have been slow in coming.
Doctors have been treating the seizures caused by the disease with epilepsy drugs, but their efficacy is limited. The drugs only slow the progression of the disease, but fail to stop it.
Currently, Ugandan government officials say that they are doing everything they can to fight the epidemic. They say that new epilepsy drugs are being tried and special training has been instituted for local health officials. This, they say, is as much as can be done for a disease whose cause and cure are largely unknown.
Saweka said, “When you know the root cause, you address the cure. Now you are just relieving the symptoms. We don’t expect to cure anybody.”
Watch a CDC video about Nodding Disease, embedded via YouTube, below:
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Agnes Apio has to tie up her son Francis before she can leave the house. In his state, he is a danger to himself. Where once he walked and talked like a normal child, now he is only able to drag himself along in the dirt. Francis is suffering from “Nodding Disease,” a brain disorder that,according to CNN, afflicts at least 3,000 children in northern Uganda, leaving them physically stunted and severely mentally disabled.
“I feel dark in my heart,” Apio says as waves flies away from her son’s face and mops up his urine after a seizure, “This boy has become nothing.”
“Reportedly the children gnaw at their fabric restraints, like a rabid animals,” says The Daily Tech. The article calls them “zombie children,” having “no cure” and “no future.”
First the victims become restless, can’t concentrate. They say they have trouble thinking. Then comes the nodding, an uncontrollable dipping of the head that presages the disease’s debilitating epilepsy-like seizures. It is this nodding motion that gives the illness its name.
Nodding Disease first attacks the nervous system, then the brain. As the epilepsy-like seizures progress and worsen, the children become less and less like themselves, and more and more distant and blank. Eventually the brain stops developing and the victims’ bodies stop growing. So far, no patients have recovered.
Grace Lagat also has to tie up her children in order to leave the house. Daughter Pauline, 13, and son Thomas are bound hand and foot to keep them from shuffling away and getting lost. Pauline recently disappeared for five days.
Experts are baffled as to what causes the disease, which only occurs in children. Early findings suggest a confluence of the presence of the black fly-borne parasitic worm Onchocerca Volvulus, which causes river blindness, and acute vitamin B6 deficiency.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, onset usually takes place at the age of five or six and progresses rapidly, leaving the victims severely mentally and physically handicapped within a couple of years.
Victims can wander off and disappear. Some 200 “secondary deaths” have been blamed on fires and accidents caused by children with the disease.
Physicians and workers with the Ugandan Red Cross are frustrated by what they see as a lack of urgency in the government’s handling of the disease. After months of lagging, officials have only begun an official tally of cases within the last two weeks.
The situation was already dire when a team from the World Health Organization visited northern Uganda in 2009. CNN quotes one doctor from the team, Dr. Joaquin Saweka as saying, “It was quite desperate, I can tell you. Imagine being surrounded by 26 children and 12 of them showing signs of this. The attitude was to quickly find a solution to the problem.”
Solutions, however, have been slow in coming.
Doctors have been treating the seizures caused by the disease with epilepsy drugs, but their efficacy is limited. The drugs only slow the progression of the disease, but fail to stop it.
Currently, Ugandan government officials say that they are doing everything they can to fight the epidemic. They say that new epilepsy drugs are being tried and special training has been instituted for local health officials. This, they say, is as much as can be done for a disease whose cause and cure are largely unknown.
Saweka said, “When you know the root cause, you address the cure. Now you are just relieving the symptoms. We don’t expect to cure anybody.”
Watch a CDC video about Nodding Disease, embedded via YouTube, below:
Monday, August 29, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
CDC Warns Public to Prepare for 'Zombie Apocalypse'
(Zombies are both my monster and Apocalypse preference. Maybe it will coincide with the Rapture this Saturday. Wouldn't that be cool? A rapture followed by a Zombie Apocalypse for those of us left behind? I'm SO stocking up on ammo! Bring it on! Gotta love a clever ad campaign, I guess.--jef)
++++++++++++++
By Joshua Rhett Miller
Published May 18, 2011 | FoxNews.com
Are you prepared for the impending zombie invasion?
That's the question posed by the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention in a Monday blog posting gruesomely titled, "Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse." And while it's no joke, CDC officials say it's all about emergency preparation.
"There are all kinds of emergencies out there that we can prepare for," the posting reads. "Take a zombie apocalypse for example. That's right, I said z-o-m-b-i-e a-p-o-c-a-l-y-p-s-e. You may laugh now, but when it happens you'll be happy you read this, and hey, maybe you'll even learn a thing or two about how to prepare for a real emergency."
The post, written by Assistant Surgeon General Ali Khan, instructs readers how to prepare for "flesh-eating zombies" much like how they appeared in Hollywood hits like Night of the Living Dead and video games like Resident Evil. Perhaps surprisingly, the same steps you'd take in preparation for an onslaught of ravenous monsters are similar to those suggested in advance of a hurricane or pandemic.
"First of all, you should have an emergency kit in your house," the posting continues. "This includes things like water, food, and other supplies to get you through the first couple of days before you can locate a zombie-free refugee camp (or in the event of a natural disaster, it will buy you some time until you are able to make your way to an evacuation shelter or utility lines are restored)."
Other items to be stashed in such a kit include medications, duct tape, a battery-powered radio, clothes, copies of important documents and first aid supplies.
"Once you've made your emergency kit, you should sit down with your family and come up with an emergency plan," the posting continues. "This includes where you would go and who you would call if zombies started appearing outside your doorstep. You can also implement this plan if there is a flood, earthquake or other emergency."
The idea behind the campaign stemmed from concerns of radiation fears following the earthquake and tsunami that rocked Japan in March. CDC spokesman Dave Daigle told FoxNews.com that someone had asked CDC officials if zombies would be a concern due to radiation fears in Japan and traffic spiked following that mention.
"It's kind of a tongue-in-cheek campaign," Daigle said Wednesday. "We were talking about hurricane preparedness and someone bemoaned that we kept putting out the same messages."
While metrics for the post are not yet available, Daigle said it has become the most popular CDC blog entry in just two days.
"People are so tuned into zombies," he said. "People are really dialed in on zombies. The idea is we're reaching an audience or a segment we'd never reach with typical messages."
Editor's Note: The link to the posting at CDC.gov was not working as of Wednesday evening. Please check back for updates.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Friday, February 26, 2010
'Zombies' have free speech rights too, US court rules
But what about REAL zombies..?
'Zombies' have free speech rights too, US court rules
Published: Thursday February 25, 2010
They're said to utter little more than an occasional groan, but zombies -- the blood-drenched monsters of Hollywood "B" movies -- still have a right to free speech, a US court ruled this week.
An appeals court in the northern US city of Minneapolis, Minnesota on Wednesday allowed a group of zombies -- or rather, several protesters costumed as such -- to press ahead with their lawsuit against police who arrested them for disorderly conduct.
The appeals court overturned a lower court in finding that the group of seven "zombies" had been wrongfully detained during a 2006 shopping mall protest against consumerism.
The three-judge panel, by a two-to-one vote, ruled that Minneapolis police lacked probable cause to arrest the demonstrators for disorderly conduct.
At the time of the protest, the plaintiffs were wearing makeup that gave them a "living dead" look: white face powder, fake blood and black circles around their eyes.
They lurched stiff-legged through the halls of the mall urging shoppers to "get your brains here" and "brain cleanup in aisle five."
In various bags, the protesters carried audio equipment including loudspeakers and wireless phone handsets, which police had described as "simulated weapons of mass destruction."
The judicial panel upheld the lower court in dismissing the plaintiffs' claims of "false imprisonment" and "First Amendment retaliation" by Minneapolis police after being put in jail for two nights.
But the appeals court sided with the protesters in ruling that police had no reason to imprison them simply for "dressing as zombies, and walking erratically in downtown Minneapolis," the court decision said.
"An objectively reasonable person would not think probable cause exists under the Minnesota disorderly conduct statue to arrest a group of peaceful people for engaging in an artistic protest by playing music, broadcasting statements (and) dressing as zombies," the appeals court ruled.
The decision allows the protesters to revive their lawsuit against Minneapolis and its police, which according to the Star Tribune newspaper seeks damages of at least 50,000 dollars per person arrested
'Zombies' have free speech rights too, US court rules
Published: Thursday February 25, 2010
They're said to utter little more than an occasional groan, but zombies -- the blood-drenched monsters of Hollywood "B" movies -- still have a right to free speech, a US court ruled this week.
An appeals court in the northern US city of Minneapolis, Minnesota on Wednesday allowed a group of zombies -- or rather, several protesters costumed as such -- to press ahead with their lawsuit against police who arrested them for disorderly conduct.
The appeals court overturned a lower court in finding that the group of seven "zombies" had been wrongfully detained during a 2006 shopping mall protest against consumerism.
The three-judge panel, by a two-to-one vote, ruled that Minneapolis police lacked probable cause to arrest the demonstrators for disorderly conduct.
At the time of the protest, the plaintiffs were wearing makeup that gave them a "living dead" look: white face powder, fake blood and black circles around their eyes.
They lurched stiff-legged through the halls of the mall urging shoppers to "get your brains here" and "brain cleanup in aisle five."
In various bags, the protesters carried audio equipment including loudspeakers and wireless phone handsets, which police had described as "simulated weapons of mass destruction."
The judicial panel upheld the lower court in dismissing the plaintiffs' claims of "false imprisonment" and "First Amendment retaliation" by Minneapolis police after being put in jail for two nights.
But the appeals court sided with the protesters in ruling that police had no reason to imprison them simply for "dressing as zombies, and walking erratically in downtown Minneapolis," the court decision said.
"An objectively reasonable person would not think probable cause exists under the Minnesota disorderly conduct statue to arrest a group of peaceful people for engaging in an artistic protest by playing music, broadcasting statements (and) dressing as zombies," the appeals court ruled.
The decision allows the protesters to revive their lawsuit against Minneapolis and its police, which according to the Star Tribune newspaper seeks damages of at least 50,000 dollars per person arrested
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