Nicaraguans Come Down with the Crazy
Sickness!
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Nicaraguans
Come Down with the Crazy Sickness!
As if swine flu weren't enough to worry
about, reports have been coming out of
Nicaragua of another illness spreading.
Referred to by locals as grisi siknis -
which translated from the indigenous Miskito
language means "crazy sickness" - it
has been causing mass hysteria among the
population lately and has the Nicaraguan
authorities at a loss for answers.
No one understands what causes the illness
or why it has returned to the small northern
port town of Bilwi on Nicaragua's northern
Caribbean coast, but 80 cases have been
reported in the last 2 months alone and the
outbreak has local residents on edge.
The illness seems to only spread among the
indigenous population and has primarily
affected young adolescent Miskito women. The
first reported cases of the sickness can be
traced back to the 1800's, but the cause has
left Western doctor's mystified. Professor
Pablo McDavis has been researching grisi
siknis in the Indigenous Diseases Department
at Uraccan University for the last few
years.
"We have taken samples of blood from
patients while suffering an attack and, in a
lab, we can't detect anything," McDavis
explained to the BBC. "Drugs or injections
tend to only increase a patient's
aggressiveness. Clinically we can't detect
anything," he continued, "It is like an
outbreak. If an attack is not contained
quickly, it can spread throughout an entire
community."
Some experts say the illness is mental and
not physical but the Miskito population
believes it to be tied to supernatural
forces and demons that inhabit the earth.
"There is more devil than God in the city
right now," said Rev. Kenneth Bushey, of the
Moravian Renovation Evangelical Church,
where seven women took ill with grisi siknis
during a youth group event last month. "God
is testing our faith.''
Meanwhile, business for witch doctors and
faith healers has been booming. Doña Porcela,
a respected traditional healer, has been
traveling the area, offering respite to
those affected, "Grisi Siknis turns people
into witches and they go crazy," she says,
but she can cure people with a special
concotion she has created. "It can be drunk
or bathed in," Porcela explains, "Within
three or four days, they are normal again." |
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