Numbers & Facts

1 People with Alzheimer’s MILLION in South Africa

257 % Anticipated growth of the disease by 2050 in sub-Saharan Africa

8 WEEKS How long it took for vast improvement to be seen in the research mice

● Because Alzheimer’s disease, the main cause of dementia, makes people behave strangely, they are often ostracised — either shut out socially, or seen as witches. A residential facility nurse who wanted to remain anonymous said: “When persons act in strange ways, the talk starts in villages and townships. They say: ‘That one has been bewitched.’ They go to those old people, vandalise their houses, burn their houses.”