Kuru (also known as laughing sickness due to the outbursts of laughter that mark its second phase) was first noted in New Guinea in the early 1900s. By the 1950s, anthropologists and Australian government officials reported that kuru ("trembling with fear" in the language of the Fore) was rampant among the South Fore, a single census division of approximately 8,000 individuals within the Okapa subdistrict. This particular group partook in ritual acts of mortuary cannibalism, a tradition later determined to be responsible for the epidemic transmission of the disease.
Kuru is now known to be a prion disease, one of several known transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. Understanding the structure and replication of the prion is crucial to interpreting the dynamics of kuru and the several other prion diseases which exist today.
Knowledge of the dynamics of the disease has continued to grow, even though the disease all but disappeared with the termination of cannibalism in New Guinea. The onset of kuru led to a five-decade study of an unfamiliar disease. This particular disease serves as an example of the procedures scientists undertake in order to understand and appreciate all of the aspects of a disease and how potential therapies and solutions can be found.