Kuru, mycotoxins and volcanic eruptions

✍ Scribed by R. Schoental

• Book ID: 102289336
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1990
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 111 KB
• Volume: 10
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0260-437X
• DOI: 10.1002/jat.2550100215

✦ Synopsis

Kuru (known also as the 'laughing disease') is a progressive degenerative disorder of the nervous system, restricted to the Fore tribe of the central highlands in Papua New Guinea, mainly in the sub-district of Okapa, drained by the Lamari and Yani rivers.l-* Kuru is characterized by tremor, ataxia, difficulties in walking, tiredness, dementia, inability to eat and, depending on the severity of the condition, death within one or more years due to ~tarvation.~ Young women and children are particularly affected.

Kuru is believed to be due to a slow-acting, viruslike agent transmitted by the consumption of brain and certain other organs of deceased ancestors, which is a tradition among the Fore tribe. KUN was first described by Gajdusek; its incidence was high in the 1950s but o2arrs3flo9onnolSSOlSOS.00 Q 1990 by John Wiley & Sons. Ltd.