Joyce Lokonyi sits on an upturned bucket, fingers weaving palm fronds as the wind pulls her dress to expose the stump of her amputated foot, lost to a little-known disease ravaging Kenya\u2019s poorest county.
\nMycetoma is a fungal or bacterial infection that enters the body through any open wound, often as tiny as a thorn prick.
\nStarting as tiny bumps under the skin, it gradually leads to the erosion of tissue, muscles and bone.
\nThe fungal variety is endemic across the so-called \u201cmycetoma belt\u201d \u2014 including Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and northern Kenya \u2014 with funding and research desperately lacking.
\nOnce the disease has reached the bone the only option is amputation.
\n\u201cI was able to slightly walk, although the disease had eaten all my toes,\u201d Lokonyi, 28, told AFP.
\nShe was shunned by the local community, she said.
\n\u201cThey used to say that when you go to someone\u2019s home, you will leave traces of the disease where you stand.\u201d
\nShe was unable to afford medication despite her husband selling off his goats, and amputation became the only option.
\n\u201cI accepted because I saw that it was going to kill me,\u201d she said, a pair of battered crutches lying on the sand beside her two-year-old daughter.
\nBut she has struggled with the aftermath.
\n\u201cI have become a good-for-nothing, I can\u2019t work, I can\u2019t burn charcoal, I can\u2019t do anything,\u201d she said.
\nIn Kenya\u2019s poorest county, Turkana, around 70 percent of the population lives beneath the poverty line, with health care limited and hard to reach.
\nMycetoma disproportionately affects rural communities of farmers and herders, according to the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative , a global NGO.
\nIt was only recognized as a neglected disease by the World Health Organization in 2016. Ignorance and misdiagnosis remain widespread.
\n\u201cDoctors are not aware of the disease,\u201d Borna Nyaoke-Anoke, DNDi\u2019s head of mycetoma research, told AFP.
\n\u201cIf you\u2019re used to donkeys, you don\u2019t start seeing zebras everywhere.\u201d
\nThe scale of the problem is difficult to estimate, but Ekiru Kidalio, director of Lodwar Hospital in Turkana, said they \u201crarely go a week without finding a case.\u201d
\nHe added that the local population, 80 percent of which is illiterate, often turns to traditional medicine.
\nBy the time they come to hospital \u201cthe condition is already advanced such that it\u2019s not easy to reverse.\u201d
\nMedication is also expensive \u2014 treatment takes up to a year and costs as much as $2,000 \u2014 and comes with dizzying side effects.
\nDiagnosis and treatment are not free under Kenya\u2019s overwhelmed health system, leaving patients at the mercy of foreign donors or seeking sums that are unimaginable for subsistence farmers.
\nIn Lodwar Hospital, lab technician John Ekai bends over his microscope and examines a suspected mycetoma sample.
\n\u201cMycetoma is a very neglected disease, no-one is giving it attention,\u201d he told AFP.
\nHe has become the go-to man for suspected patients, handling his charges with a mischievous sense of humor that puts them at ease.
\nEkai has treated more than 100 mycetoma patients in the past year, but has seen only five recoveries, with many simply vanishing back into Turkana\u2019s arid plains.
\nHe worries for those who have disappeared: \u201cThe mycetoma will grow and grow and maybe… lead to amputation.\u201d
\nDuring AFP\u2019s visit, he examined young mother Jennifer Ekal, 19, who had lived with the disease since she was 11.
\n\u201cI was in school but I decided to leave because of my foot,\u201d she said, showing her swollen and painful extremity, hidden beneath a red-and-white dishcloth.
\nFour doses of medication a day appeared to be helping, she said.
\nBut as she gathered up her daughter, three-year-old Bianca, she admitted she was worried about the future.
\n\u201cI do not want to think about the worst.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joyce Lokonyi sits on an upturned bucket, fingers weaving palm fronds as the wind pulls her dress to expose the stump of her amputated foot, lost to a little-known disease ravaging Kenya\u2019s poorest county. Mycetoma is a fungal or bacterial infection that enters the body through any open wound, often as tiny as a thorn …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":80807,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80794"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80809,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80794\/revisions\/80809"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}