Sitting outside her family's mud hut, near the small town of Lui, Susannah is gripped by a series of brain seizures which force her neck to arch forwards, down, and then up again.


"We have no clue as what is causing this. It's like a detective novel and a murder mystery, because it's fatal," says Dr Mickey Richer, a tropical disease specialist from Unicef.

So far, almost 300 children are known to have caught the disease - all in one small region of the country.

Bizarrely, the seizures normally occur when the sufferers start to eat, or when it is particularly cold.

When Dr Richer asks for a bowl of sorghum to be placed in front of Susannah, the "nodding" begins almost immediately, and stop when she has finished eating.

Curiously, Susannah does not react if she eats unfamiliar food - a chocolate bar for instance.

Originally posted by iori_komeiThis nodding condition is much weirder though.
I wonder if maybe it's not a bio-psychological condition.