New cures for Africa’s most gruesome diseases

As the sun rises and the nurses enter the ward, the children whimper. When the trolley approaches their beds, they begin to wail. Each morning in Amudat, a town in eastern Uganda, those in the local hospital brace themselves for treatment. When the nurse administers the jabs—one in each buttock for 17 days straight—some try to resist. The drugs are so toxic that for several days it can be painful just to sit.