Kazakhstan,dec.18 : mysterious sleeping sickness that causes them to doze for days have fluid on their brains, doctors claim’
A mysterious sleeping epidemic that makes residents of a village known as Sleepy Hollow doze off for days at a time is caused by excessive fluid in the brain, according to doctors.Doctors, however, have been unable to identify the cause of the condition that has affected residents in the remote village of Kalachi, in northern Kazakhstan, for nearly four years.
Locals say the strange sleeping disorder is getting worse, with nearly 14 per cent of the towns 600 residents having been affected.Kalachi and the neighbouring town Krasnogorsk are located beside an abandoned Soviet-era uranium mine that many locals believe is responsible for causing the mysterious sleeping sickness that affects residents
Some in the remote village, which is 276 miles from the Kazakh capital Astana, now live in fear that they may never wake up from the strange sleeping disorder. Over the summer, 60 people were taken to hospital suffering from the condition, which leaves people feeling dizzy, unable to stand, fatigued and with memory problems.
Some have also reported suffering from vivid hallucinations. Doctors have already ruled out viruses and bacterial infections like meningitis as the cause. Scientists have also been unable to find any chemicals in the soil or water that might be causing the sleeping sickness. Many locals believe the cause may be coming from nearby former Soviet-era uranium mines that are now abandoned.
However, miners who worked down the mine have also not been affected, while tests have shown that radiation levels in the village and the neighbouring town of Krasnogorsk, once a prosperous area but now a ghost town that surrounds the abandoned mine, are the same as background levels.
Yet a film crew from Russia Today, who filmed a documentary about the latest outbreak in September this year, reported detecting radiation doses 16 times higher than would be expected from background radiation close to the entrance of an abandonned filled in mine shaft.
Some locals claim wind and smoke coming from the mines may be responsible for the illness.
