A WILLIAMSTOWN doctor is helping raise awareness of a little-known disease killing the “poorest of the poor” in central Africa.
Peter Zammit, together with other parishioners at Christchurch Newport, has formed a group called The Konzo Project to support Dr Howard Bradbury’s fight against Konzo disease.
Konzo is a sudden paralysis that occurs in people, particularly children and young mothers, whose diet consists mainly of cassava, a crop from which flour and porridge are made and which contains a natural form of cyanide.
Dr Bradbury, an emeritus fellow of Australian National University, has spent 20 years researching and developing means to prevent the disease, which has affected an estimated 100,000 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo alone.
Dr Zammit said a simple technique known as the wetting method – mixing cassava flour with water and spreading it out to dry for several hours – allowed the cyanide to bubble off. “It’s such a simple thing to do and it reduces risk of this disease, which affects the poorest of the poor,” he said. “It cost $25,000 to do the trial in the village that they did.”
Dr Zammit said he became involved after having a sudden realisation in 2010. “It was Christmas time and on the news they were talking about how Australia was going to spend $20billion or something on Gucci handbags and designer jeans for the Boxing Day sales and I was thinking, you know, what an injustice.
“For such a small amount of money the villages of Africa could stop their kids getting sick and the consequences of that sickness, too – the paralysis, the unemployment, or some can’t walk – and just the devastation that a disability is in a developing country.
“And it could be prevented so easily. That’s sort of what moves me. I think it’s an easy solution.
“Let’s see what we can do to help Howard raise some more money to prevent it in more villages. I worked out that if every man, woman and child who lives in Hobsons Bay or visits for business or something gave $10, we’d probably raise $1million and that would Konzo-proof about 40 villages.”
For more information, email peter.zammit@bigpond.com
