Opinion: The WHO recognizes noma after years of medical-dental disconnect
What took so long for the World Health Organization to recognize the devastating noma as a neglected tropical disease?
Fidel Strub was 3 years old when his face began rotting away. “It’s hell. It’s like you have a burning face,” he told me. “You can’t even open your eyes because it’s just that bad. It’s just burning.”
No one in his village in the West African country of Burkina Faso knew what was happening to him. His grandmother took him almost 200 miles for evaluation at a clinic, where, he said, the doctor “had absolutely no hope” that he would survive. This past summer, I had the chance to speak with Strub and several others to learn more about the little-known disease noma.
What's Your Reaction?
