With over 100 children believed to be infected with the nodding disease in Amuru and 11 recently recorded deaths in Odek sub county in Gulu district, Gulu district Chairman Mr Martin Ojara Mapenduzi last week told the press that Gulu Local Government is demanding for a more robust and affirmative response from the Ministry of Health (MOH).

Mapenduzi said that as the government through the MOH continues to dither over the epidemic, parents and children are in a state of dilemma, uncertain about how this untold suffering is going to end.

“Gulu district is giving the Ministry of Health only 4 days to respond not only by talking or the district will be forced to demonstrate to the government how powerful the voice of the people in the community are since children in Gulu are also not second class citizen who should be allowed to die” he said.

Mapenduzi said that the MOH has only “paid lip service and offered a deaf ear” on this issue in both Amuru and Gulu districts and wondered why the newly formed National Committee on Management of Nodding Disease doesn’t have any member of parliament from Gulu or Amuru yet there are confirmed cases of the epidemic in his districts.

He said that he is shocked of the fact that the Deputy Speaker of Parliament Hon Jacob Oulanyah has never issued any statement or demanded more action from the MOH yet children are quietly perishing in his own constituency of Omoro in Odek Sub County.

He said that it is a blatant case of neglect and abuse against the sub-region, and that in as much as he recognises that treatment centres have been established in the districts of Kitgum, Agago and Pader; more needs to be done by the government in the region; including the districts of Gulu, Amuru and Nwoya if the government want to be seen as caring for the people of the region.