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According to the World Health Organization, epilepsy is the most common severe brain disorder worldwide, with no age, racial, social class, nationality, or geographic boundaries.

  • 65 million: Number of people around the world who have epilepsy.

  • 3.4 million: Number of people in the United States who have epilepsy.

  • 45,000: Number of children under the age of 15 who develop epilepsy each year.

  • 470,000: Number of children in the United States who have epilepsy.

  • 1 in 26: Ratio of people in the United States who will develop epilepsy at some point in their lifetime.

  • Between 4 and 10 out of 1,000: Ratio of people on earth who live with active seizures at any one time.

  • 150,000: Number of new cases of epilepsy in the United States each year.

  • One-third: Fraction of people with epilepsy who live with uncontrollable seizures because no available medicines work for them.

  • 1 in 1,000: Number of people who die each year from SUDEP (sudden unexpected death in epilepsy). This means that each year in the United States, there are about 3,000 deaths due to SUDEP (neurologists suspect that figure is conservative).

  • 6 out of 10: Number of people with epilepsy where the cause is unknown.

  • Funding for epilepsy: Not enough.