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An electronic cigarette smoker (illustration image). AFP PHOTO / Nicoals Tucat

A mysterious lung disease strikes ejaculatory users in the United States. More than 450 patients have already been reported across the country.

With our correspondent in San Francisco, Éric de Salves

The state of Indiana announced Friday, September 6, the death of a third cigarette smoker. Health authorities are calling for an end to the use of e-cigarettes until scientists can determine the cause of the disease, which is still unknown at the moment.

The symptoms are the same every time and hit young people in perfect health before their first puffs of vaping: fever, cough, headache, weight loss and especially a serious infection of the lungs requiring hospitalization.

450 patients in three states

The first cases that appeared in April in Illinois are initially perceived as isolated, but with 450 patients identified today in 33 states and especially three deaths, the US health authorities are convinced to face a serious epidemic. Several scientific investigations are under way in the most affected states and the Federal Center for Disease Prevention says it is working hard to find the source of this mysterious lung disease.

But the variety of types of e-cigarettes available on the market complicates this research. Especially since the patients had smoked different models of vapers, some with nicotine, others with cannabis. The federal agency is currently studying about a hundred different samples, but the cause of the epidemic is not yet isolated even though the suspicions are about the chemicals contained in the oil of the vapers.

As a precaution, as long as these medical investigations have not succeeded, the US federal authorities call in any case the population to avoid using electronic cigarettes.