TO GO WITH AFP STORY BY MAX DELANY A tee

TO GO WITH AFP STORY BY MAX DELANY A teenage boy waits for epilepsy medication to deal with symptoms of a mystery ailment known as nodding disease, outside the Pajimu health centre in the northern Uganda Kitgum district on February 1, 2012. For several years, scientists have tried -- and failed -- to determine the cause of the disease, that locals say has killed hundreds of youngsters. What they do know is that the disease affects only children, and gradually descends through debilitating seizures to stunted growth, wasted limbs, mental disabilities and sometimes starvation. Scientists are trying to find a cure: since 2010, researchers ranging from epidemiologists to environmental experts, neurologists, toxicologists and psychiatrists have carried out a range of tests. Investigations have looked at possible links between the disease and everything from a parasite that causes river blindness, to malnutrition and the after-effects of a civil war that ravaged northern Uganda for decades. AFP PHOTO / Michele Sibiloni (Photo credit should read MICHELE SIBILONI/AFP via Getty Images)