PJ Vogt

When you get kuru, the first stage is that you begin to walk in a wobbly way.

You struggle to pronounce some familiar words.

It sounds to me a little bit like being too drunk at a wedding.

The next phase is where it begins to get scary.

You shake, you shiver, you have goosebumps, and you start to laugh.

Not because anything's funny.

These are spasms.

Huge, uncontrollable bouts of laughter that come out of nowhere and which you cannot stop.

At this point, you know you have Kuru, and you know that that means you're going to die.

How much time you have left ranges.

Some people live with the disease for two months, some people as long as three years.

But no one recovers.

Everyone arrives at the final stage.

In the final stage, you struggle even to sit up.

You may not be able to talk.

You're conscious, but you don't seem to be present.

One of the last things you lose is your ability to swallow.

Food, water.

This is the point where if you're 4A, the people who love you will smother you to death out of mercy so that you don't starve.

But if Kuru was a disease, it didn't function like any disease anyone had ever seen.