Ritual cannibalism explained a terrible kuru epidemic

Kuru is a fatal neurological disease that decimated an aboriginal population of Fore tribes in eastern New Guinea. This condition mainly affected women and children because they consumed the central nervous system of the deceased during funeral rites, while men ate the muscles and remained spared. The end of these anthropophagy practices under the pressure of the Australian administration allowed the disease to disappear, the last case of which was recorded in 2003.