SA celebrates World Multiple Sclerosis Day

WORLD Multiple Sclerosis Day took place on Wednesday, May 25 in all corners of the globe. It’s happening in South Africa too, and a variety of activities are planned under the Banner of ‘Believe you Can’, a campaign launched May in the spirit of MS Awareness Month to encourage those living with MS to continue to fight, to those out there not living with MS to challenge themselves and believe they can.

Multiple sclerosis is one of the most common neurological auto-immune disorders and causes of disability in many people with MS. The cause of MS is not yet known and there is no cure. There are 2.3 million people with MS worldwide and this number is rising each year. It is likely that hundreds of thousands more remain undiagnosed and many lives are affected indirectly, through caring for someone with MS.

According to, Thembi Sene, chairman of Multiple Sclerosis South Africa (MSSA) inland, the purpose of the day is to celebrate global solidarity and hope for the future. “In Celebration of World MS Day we will be having awareness activities throughout the month and engaging with members of the public wherever we are. This day brings the global MS community together to share stories, raise awareness and campaign with and for everyone affected by this disorder. In 2016, the theme for World MS Day is ‘Independence’. It will explore how people with MS can be independent, acknowledging that independence can mean different things to different people,” she reveals.

Sene adds that World MS Day celebrates everyone who has broken down the barriers to living with MS. “Those people could be carers, friends, family members, health professionals, policy makers, companies, schools or support groups, anyone who has made a difference to people with MS. We would like to encourage all South Africans to start learning and speaking about MS. It is our greatest wish that more research be done into MS and that one day this incurable disease will find a cure,” she said.

MS is not a widely understood disease. “In layman’s terms, there are multiple sclerosis (many scars) that form on the central nervous system,” explains Brian Eades, who has lived with MS for 16 years. “These sores attack the protective sheath (myelin) covering nerves around the brain and in the brain stem. The sclerosis are caused by the person’s immune system being over-active and attacking the central nervous system. This results in a distorted or no messages being transmitted to muscles, most often legs, arms, eyes, speech and bladder.”