MONROVIA, Liberia, February 14, 2022—People with epilepsy face many challenges in low-resource countries such as Liberia, where the disease often remains undiagnosed, untreated and misunderstood.
Epilepsy is a chronic disease of the brain characterized by recurrent seizures, which can vary from brief involuntary movements to severe convulsions. Seizures can be debilitating and dangerous for the person experiencing them and troubling to those around them. Without a medical diagnosis, families often turn to traditional or religious healers in search of a cure.
Amuchin Nango was nine years old when he suffered a head injury in a bicycle accident and began experiencing seizures¾falling to the ground, jerking uncontrollably, even biting his tongue.
“His family got so confused and did not know what to do,” explains Abraham Kollie, a psychosocial worker with Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontères (MSF) in Liberia. “At some point the family believed it was spiritual, like witchcraft. He was taken to so many traditional healers in Liberia and Sierra Leone, but the treatments could not yield any good response.”