Heavy metals found in the blood of patients with mysterious disease in India

Hundreds of patients were diagnosed with a mysterious disease in Andhra Pradesh on December 6, 2020. Here, local health minister Alla Nani visits these patients.

© Public Relation Department Government of Andhra Pradesh, AFP

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While an unknown disease has caused the death of one person and the hospitalization of 500 others in southern India since Saturday, the authorities announced Tuesday, December 8, to have found its possible origin: this would be due to pesticides released into the surrounding canals that would have contaminated the running water in the area, and poisoned thousands of people.

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With our correspondent in New Delhi,

A battery of specialist doctors from across the country, supported by experts from the World Health Organization (WHO), have been in Eluru, in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, for two days.

A first finding of their examinations reveals that many patients have abnormally high amounts of nickel and lead in their blood, and this could have led to their

, epileptic-like

: convulsions, vomiting and fainting, which also affected children.

A laboratory also found herbicides and pesticides in the running water in the area, and this at levels 100,000 times higher than the maximum allowed.

This could be the result of

of fertilizers and pesticides by farmers in the area into the surrounding canals.

These chemicals would then have mixed, in a concentrated way, with the supply of the population with running water.

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• India

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• Pollution

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