There is no doubt that Uganda for sometime has been steadily registering high level of economic growth and development especially for the last 27 years of NRM’s governance. This economic growth and development is characterized by improvement in provision of social services such as health and education, reduction in poverty levels, improvement in infrastructure, and reduction in illiteracy levels, among others.

As a result of improved health services and literacy among Ugandans, disability as a result of polio which was hitherto the traditional cause of disability was contained. This would be a great cause to celebrate by all Ugandans irrespective of their political ideologies.

However, for us in Ultimate Media Consult, we are concerned that there are increasing cases of disability in spite of the successful fight against polio in Uganda and great improvements in Ugandan citizen’s knowledge and health.

The focus of my (Walakira Nyanzi) article is on spina bifida and hydrocephalus, conditions which cause physical disability. This news piece comes in the recent wake of revelations by Dr Michael Muhumuza, the Acting Head of the Neurosurgical

Unit at Mulago Hospital and Uganda’s hosting of an international conference on spina bifida and hydrocephalus.

Dr Muhumuza says in his report to the conference that seven-ten children with spina bifida are produced at Mulago hospital alone every week. This translates to about 480 children produced with this condition in just one year and at Mulago hospital alone. This is a very big number which cannot be ignored by medical practitioners and of course our health news team headed by Walakira Nyanzi.

Dr. Muhumuza says that a person can have both spina bifida and hydrocephalus, or either of the two conditions. Most people with these conditions normally have severe and multiple disabilities.

You could find many of the victims of spina bifida and hydrocephalus confined in wheel chairs, having epilepsy, slow learners and brain injury. Such a person and the family find the life very challenging as they are mostly likely to live in a life of great poverty and miserly.

You may be all aware that disability causes poverty and poverty also causes disability. The good thing is that these conditions can be managed and preventable to some extent.

However, managing the conditions is as expensive as the child may need surgery and services of many specialists such as physiotherapist, occupational therapists and close supervision and review of doctors and nurses. We are aware that these specialists are not available in our Ugandan communities and where they are available, their services are so expensive. The children also need assistive devices, rehabilitation and clean intermittent catheterization and bowel management as they cannot control urine and bowel movement.

Dr. Muhumuza therefore says that the government and the communities should highly concentrate on the preventive measures of spina bifida and hydrocephalus because it is cheaper to prevent the cause than managing the effects of spina bifida and hydrocephalus. The two basic preventive measures are mandatory fortification of foods (adding folic acid to foods) because spina bifida is caused by lack of folic acid by pregnant mothers. The other one is improvement of the health service delivery more especially maternal health, avoiding of infections and cerebral malaria. These are highly responsible for causing hydrocephalus. Spina bifida and hydrocephalus are some of the types of physical disability currently crippling Ugandans.

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