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Six Die of Keshan Disease in Two Weeks in China's Yunnan - Hong Kong Paper

Posted on: Thursday, 28 July 2005, 18:01 CDT

Text of report by Yunnan-based staff reporter He Hsiang-hung from Kunming entitled: "Six people died of Keshan disease in Yunnan Province in two weeks"; published by Hong Kong newspaper Wen Wei Po website on 28 July

Kunming, 27 July: The News-Gathering Department of Wen Wei Po received this afternoon information provided by a reader for the newspaper's Jingzhong Office in Bicheng Town, Lufeng County, Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, saying that 10 people died of a disease with an unknown cause and that the disease was suspected to be the related to pigs from Sichuan. A Wen Wei Po reporter contacted the Information Office of Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture and found that the fatal disease occurred there was the local Keshan disease, which has nothing to do with pigs. At present, a report says that an accumulated total of seven cases have been found in Bicheng Town, Renxing Town and Axi Town of Lufeng County and two of them have symptoms similar to the Keshan disease. It has also been said that four people died in Lufeng County and two in Nanhua County.

The Local Disease Has Existed in Chuxiong Over a Very Long Time

According to information provided by an authoritative department of Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture, since 15 July, cases of people who suddenly died of an unknown carcinogenic cause have been found one after another in Lufeng County and Nanhua County of Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture. The local government immediately conducted an epidemiological survey and experts from the State Disease Control Centre and the Yunnan Provincial Local Diseases Prevention and Control Institute also came to give guidance to the work. Following investigation, it has been confirmed that the fatal disease is a local disease of Chuxiong, Yunnan Province, called the "Chuxin disease," which is also called the Keshan disease.

Before 1949, there were already reports on cases of the disease called the "cold disease" or the "Deyao disease" occurred in Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province. Later, this disease with an unknown cause that caused people to die abruptly continued to occur there. At the beginning of the 1960s, the disease broke out among children in the prefecture with a death rate as high as 98 per cent. Since the cause to the disease was unknown, the disease was called the Chuxin disease at that time. Then further investigation and study were conducted and it was found that the Chuxin disease is of the same nature as the Keshan disease in the Northeast and therefore, the disease was renamed the Keshan disease. The name of the disease has remained unchanged even now, but the disease is somewhat different from the Keshan disease of the Northeast.

At present, Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture has set up the Yunnan Keshan Disease Institute.

Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

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