First discovered in the 1950s, Kuru disease killed many tribesmen in Papua New Guinea.
Unfortunately, there are many diseases around the world that affect millions of people every day. Although the death rate for most of the deadliest diseases has decreased over the years thanks to advances in medicine and public health, there are still many that occur on a large scale.
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Kuru’s disease
In fact, the mortality rate from one of the world’s deadliest diseases is almost 100 percent – something that no longer occurs today. O Kuru’s disease First discovered in the 1950s among members of the so-called Fore tribe in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, it is caused by an infectious protein (prion) found in contaminated human brain tissue. Prions are special proteins that occur naturally in cells of the nervous system (especially the brain and spinal cord) and the immune system (lymph nodes and spleen). Malformed prions (PrPSc) have a special property: they can convert normal prions (PrPC) into disease-causing prions and thus damage brain tissue.
According to Medline Plus “it was [Kuru] “Found in people from New Guinea who practiced a form of cannibalism in which they ate the brains of dead people as part of a funeral ritual.” The disease reached its peak in the 1950s, when the death rate in affected villages rose to levels as high as 35 in 1000. The population increased. It turned out that children and women were more affected than men – possibly because women and children ate the tribe’s brains. Men consumed muscle meat.
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Incubation period up to 50 years
The incubation period for the disease is very long and can last from a few years to decades. Typically it is between 10 and 13 years, but cases with an incubation period of 50 years or more have been reported in the past. But once symptoms appear, the affected person usually only survives a year or two before tragically dying. The disease is manifested by plaques in the cerebellum, which control coordination and fine-tuning of movement sequences.
The word Kuru comes from the local language and means “muscle tremors”, which is also one of the most common symptoms. It also includes pain in the arms and legs, difficulty walking, headaches, paralysis and difficulty swallowing.
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A Kuru-infected boy watched while walking.pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22249461/
No cases since 2010
Although the practice of brain eating ceased in the 1960s, cases of kuru continued to occur for many years thereafter. No deaths have been reported since 2010 and there is little information about who was the last person to die from it. Some sources say this was in 2005, while other sources say it was in 2009. Today the disease is almost non-existent.
Browsing account red hour 09/17/2023, 9:16 pm | Act: September 17, 2023, 9:16 pm