Following our investigative story about the witchcraft saga rocking National Council of Sports (NCS), an expert and Investigator reader has thankfully joined the legendary conversation which has refused to do away with the African mentality.
After reading our April 25th piece about the emergency of what majority perceived as sorcery at NCS, under the Headline; “COW at NCS: Witchcraft Shamelessly rocks National Council of Sports Corridors as scramble for deals heighten,” our ardent reader with a scientific touch offered his experience and expertise against the symptoms we had reported. Below are his views;
“Good morning, Editor. Just wanted to point out that scientifically, the phenomenon of sudden blindness is normally associated with a sudden and huge surge in blood pressure leading to the rupture of the blood vessels in the eyes. This results in permanent blindness. Hypertension is a silent killer because most times, its victims don’t recognize the symptoms which often present as a persistent headache or tightness in the chest.
If one has other conditions like asthma, they may mistake hypertension for an attack. That happened to me one Friday morning in 2017 while I worked in Kigali. I woke up planning to travel to Kampala by evening bus but began feeling uncomfortable in the chest at about 9am. I walked into a nearby clinic hoping to get a prescription for asthma drugs.
Upon going through the initial checks which involved taking a temperature and blood pressure-reading, the girl almost dropped her equipment. She led me ahead of the queue to a doctor who on reading the pressure at 170/150, immediately sent me to the emergency room where I was given a jab to bring it down.
I could not understand the panic because I did not feel as bad as the readings indicated. The medical staff were shocked that I had actually walked myself to the facility. To cut a long story short, after I had been stabilized, I had to submit to a full examination of my blood. Three hours later, the results indicated a huge buildup of cholesterol. I was put on medication for that, a change of diet and exercise routine.
I was just lucky because worst case scenario would have been a stroke or blindness. I also know a gentleman who used to head the Bahai faith here (Uganda). I interviewed him in 1995. Two years later, as I walked by the building where he worked, I was shocked to see him blind, being led out of his car! Hypertension had knocked out his sight! Diabetes is another silent killer of seemingly young health people.
We don’t have a culture of or many of us cannot afford regular medical checks. Many young people have slipped into diabetic coma’s and some passed on. Due to lack of awareness, witchcraft is always blamed especially if the victim was successful, doing well in a good job or business. I think when reporting these stories, we could form a habit of adding the medical expert view as a footnote to popular perception.
In conclusion of his submission, we realize the expert whom we believe is also African, does strongly want to say that its true witchcraft exists but sometimes if not most times, people don’t want to believe in the same. However, we apologize to our readers for the glitch of not having considered the scientific view in the story concerning NCS.
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