image source, THE HERALD
Fainting is one of the reactions suffered by 200 girls from El Carmen de Bolívar.
In the last 12 days, doctors in El Carmen de Bolívar, a mountainous city in northern Colombia, have treated 200 girls with common symptoms: fainting, dizziness, headache, numbness and tingling in various parts of the body. What triggered the reactions is still a mystery.
They have not been the first with a similar condition to arrive at the Nuestra Señora del Carmen Hospital.
According to the mayor of the town, Francisco Vega, a total of 276 cases have been registered since the middle of the year. All adolescents and most of the students of the Espíritu Santo school.
However, Colombian Health Minister Alejandro Gaviria spoke Thursday of 246 girls with «bizarre symptoms.»
If there is a disparity in figures, the greater the ground for speculation about the causes. In the absence of a diagnosis, there are several theories that run from mouth to mouth.
To silence conjectures, especially that of those who link the cases to an adverse reaction to the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine, the Minister of Health highlighted at a press conference a hypothesis that experts are considering, «the one that in this time seems more likely.»
According to Gaviria, these are «massive psychogenic responses.»
«Collective Fear»
«The massive psychogenic response is a kind of suggestion, of collective fear that spreads from one place to another and ends up presenting a strange phenomenon,» the minister explained to reporters.
«Symptoms occur, but when the doctors go to clinically examine the girls, they don’t find any signs of disease.»
He mentioned similar cases, one that took place in Taiwan, after a massive vaccination to prevent the N1H1 flu, and another in Australia, but without giving dates or further details.
However, Gaviria insisted that the girls are indeed sick.
«It is not that the girls are not sick, they are. It is not that we have underestimated the problem. The problem must be taken seriously and we will continue to accompany the community, but this does not seem to be a problem of a clinical disease.»
image source, THE HERALD
On March 21, they received the first fainted girls at the Nuestra Señora del Carmen Hospital.
And he announced that the Ministry wants to work this week with the Colombian Association of Psychiatry, which has shown itself willing to disappear El Carmen de Bolívar.
That said, he ruled out that there is a «clinical» reason and that the HPV vaccine has to do with the phenomenon. «There is no evidence,» she qualified, and insisted that lately she has the endorsement of the World Health Organization, the Pan American Health Organization «and all the scientific associations.»
parental anger
The minister’s explanations, however, have not satisfied everyone.
«The press conference warmed the spirits of several parents,» explained to BBC Mundo Vicente Arcieri, head of information for the newsroom that the newspaper The Herald has in cartagena de indias.
An hour after the press conference, several people blocked the Troncal de Occidente, the highway that connects the interior of the country with the coast, for five hours in protest at the position of the authorities.
Arcieri is following close to the case.
On Thursday he was at the Nuestra Señora del Carmen Hospital and informed BBC Mundo that 10 girls were admitted that day with the aforementioned symptoms.
month without response
These are the latest cases of a phenomenon that has been worrying citizens and authorities for months.
Ten of the patients who first went to the Nuestra Señora del Carmen Hospital are being treated in Bogotá, at the San José University Children’s Hospital.
One of them is the daughter of María Romero. She was the first of those who showed symptoms in El Carmen de Bolívar, on March 21. She then went for the first time to the health center in her town, to which they returned for the same reason on April 23.
«Since then we have not had a rest,» the mother told BBC Mundo by phone from the Colombian capital.
At the Bogotá hospital, they told her that a test had concluded that her daughter had lead poisoning, as did another of the girls.
The center’s head of toxicology, Camilo Uribe, explained on Wednesday to the Colombian newspaper time that there were no clear and specific features indicating what the other patients might have. And he added that upcoming exams would focus on endocrinology, immunology and psychiatry.
The authorities will inform that at least a week will pass before they can give the diagnosis. An answer that dispels the mystery and reassures the spirits.