Mystery Illness Kills at Least 17 Chinese

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Mystery Illness Kills at Least 17 Chinese

 

The Associated Press

Sunday, July 24, 2005; 1:12 PM

 

BEIJING -- An unidentified illness has killed 17

farmers and sickened 41 in southwestern China after

they butchered sick pigs or sheep, China's official

news agency said Sunday.

 

Those affected had symptoms including high fever,

fatigue, nausea and vomiting, and " became comatose

later with bruises under the skin, " Xinhua news agency

said.

 

 

Over the past four weeks, 58 people from areas around

the cities of Ziyang and Neijiang in China's

southwestern Sichuan province were hospitalized with

such symptoms, Xinhua said.

 

Seventeen of those hospitalized have died, while 12

are in critical condition, 27 are stable and two have

recovered, it said.

 

A " preliminary probe found out that the affected

farmers have butchered sick pigs or sheep " before

falling ill, the report said.

 

It said that medical experts believe the illness " is

not spreading further among humans, " and that there

were " no obvious signs of (an) epidemic. "

 

Local governments as well as health and agricultural

officials have set up special teams to try to

determine the cause of the illness, the report said

late Sunday night.

 

The report did not cite a suspected cause of the

sickness, but authorities in Hong Kong has said

earlier Sunday that Chinese authorities believe a

bacterial infection might be responsible for the

deaths.

 

World Health Organization spokesman Bob Dietz said the

cases didn't appear to be related to bird flu, a viral

disease that has killed at least 57 people in Vietnam,

Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia since 2003.

 

The victims in Sunday's report suffered from

poisoning-related shock syndrome and were acutely

infected, an unidentified worker at a hospital

treating the patients said in a telephone interview

aired on Hong Kong's Cable TV.

 

The son of one of the victims told Cable TV his father

fell ill after slaughtering and eating part of a sick

pig. The names of the son and victim were not given.

 

Pigs in the area had been infected with streptococcus

bacteria, which is common in domestic animals, the

hospital worker said. It was unclear if the sick sheep

in the area were infected with the same bacteria.

 

Hong Kong's Hospital Authority has asked its hospitals

to notify health authorities of any patients with the

same symptoms as those seen in Ziyang, spokesman

Raymond Lo said Sunday.

 

Hong Kong has been wary of diseases spreading from

China since severe acute respiratory syndrome, or

SARS, was brought to the territory by a mainlander in

2003 and killed 299 people in Hong Kong.