The proportion of deaths in the region attributed to NCDs — including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, asthma and mental illness — was 20 per cent in 2001, but is set to double by 2020.
A second suspected case reported in Thies region, Senegal was also a fisherman from Tanji locality in the Gambia, showing neurologic symptoms including an altered mental state.
DEEP brain stimulation has long been psychiatry's black magic: stick electrodes into a region linked to mental illness, deliver rapid pulses of weak current, and voila!