Mystery disease kills 20 in Nepal
Pastor Dale Morgan
Mystery disease kills 20 in Nepal
*
POSTED: 0336 GMT (1136 HKT), October 31, 2006
KATHMANDU, Nepal (Reuters) -- A mysterious disease has killed at least
20 people in two villages of west Nepal over the past 10 days, and
hundreds more are sick, a health official said on Tuesday.
"People suddenly catch high fever, start shivering, faint and then die,"
said Ram Bahadur Chand, a senior official the district public health
office in Nepalgunj, 321 km west of the capital, Kathmandu.
Local media reports put the death toll at 36 from four remote villages
near Nepalgunj.
"We have 20 confirmed deaths so far and more than 300 people are
suffering from the unknown disease," Chand told Reuters.
He said 200 blood samples had been collected and medical workers had
reached the affected villages.
Each year Nepal's rickety health infrastructure run by a mere 1,300
doctors in 87 hospitals around the country deals with hundreds of
thousands of cases of pneumonia, cholera, fever, diarrhea and tuberculosis.
Many of the poor Himalayan nation's 26 million people are either unable
to afford the cost of medical treatment or do not have access to basic
health care.