Mseleni disease

Mseleni disease

A crippling idiopathic polyarticular osteoarthritis, which is endemic in Northern Zululand (now Kwazulu-Natal), an impoverished, geographically isolated province of South Africa, which affects appendicular joints of 11% of men and 39% of women. When first described in the late 1970s, an estimated 2,000 persons suffered from the disease, which was viewed as similar to dysplasia epiphysealis multiplex and spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia. Up to 90% of the population was grossly incapacitated in old age.