This video released only recently confirms that this outbreak was indeed confirmed to be due to carbon monoxide poisoning:
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EXCLUSIVE - Mysterious Kazakh 'village of the damned' where children with 'Sleepy Hollow' disease, have fits, blurred vision, stomach cramps and fall asleep for DAYS
Children are suffering from mystery illness in Kazakh village of Berezovka
They complained of having dizziness, numb limbs, fits, cramps, nausea
Parents say children fall off their chairs in school and stay asleep for days
They say they have been poisoned by toxic emissions from power station
But owners Shell and its foreign partners and government deny allegations
1,500 residents moved 15 miles away to Aksai - but still get the symptoms
By WILL STEWART IN MOSCOW FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 08:03 EST, 18 February 2016 | UPDATED: 10:44 EST, 18 February 2016
A Kazakh village of 1,500 people is being abandoned after children were struck down by a mystery illness which led them to fall asleep for days.
Dozens of school children struck down by the bizarre 'Sleepy Hollow' disease have fallen off seats in class, have tummy cramps, convulsions, lose feeling in their limbs, dizziness and blurred eyesight.
A father whose little boy was struck down by the strange symptoms told MailOnline: 'Every day my son goes to school and by 11 am, the teachers call me to take him home because he became ill again.'
Those living in the village of Berezovka, western Kazakhstan have been evacuated to the village of Aksai, around 15 miles away - but still suffer from dizziness and fall asleep for up to a week at a time.
Parents in Berezovka blame the symptoms on toxic emissions being emitted from the Karachaganak Petroleum Operating power station run by energy giant Shell.
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It said: 'Almost 50 per cent of the villagers are chronically ill and 80 per cent of the children suffer from respiratory diseases.'
Dangerous chemicals, including hydrogen sulfide which is very poisonous, in Berezovka's air, independent monitors found.
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But when officials inspected pollution levels they found them to be safe.
The country's Deputy Prime Minister Saparbayev blamed it on a faulty chimney and hot water plant at the local school.
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The bizarre goings on in Berezovka have been compared to those in Kalachi, another Kazakh village dubbed 'Sleepy Hollow', where locals began inexplicably falling asleep for days at a time.
That phenomenon was put down to toxic gases seeping to the surface from a disused Soviet era uranium mine.
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AUTHOR: SARAH ZHANG. SARAH ZHANG SCIENCE DATE OF PUBLICATION: 07.16.15.
TIME OF PUBLICATION: 7:00 AM.
THE MYSTERY OF THE KAZAKHSTANI SLEEPING SICKNESS
IN 2013, DOZENS of people in Kalachi and Krasnogorsky, towns in remote Kazakhstan, began succumbing to a mysterious ?sleeping sickness.? They started passing out at random?at school, at home, on a motorcycle?sometimes for days at a time. Kazakhstani officials announced last week they had an explanation: carbon monoxide drifting out of a nearby uranium mine.
Problem solved, right? Only?maybe not.
The Soviet-era uranium mine, abandoned since the early 1990s, was indeed an early suspect. But its most obvious associated dangers?like radon gas and radiation?didn?t fit the symptoms. Victims who didn?t pass out suffered hallucinations, headaches, and fatigue, while radon and radiation are more likely to increase cancer risk in the long-term. Scientists descended on Kalachi, a tiny 600-person village, and eventually ruled out a pathogen or man-made toxin as the cause. Theories about mass psychosis and even the supernatural took hold. Now, the official explanation is carbon monoxide.
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By Roland Oliphant, Moscow
5:05PM GMT 26 Mar 2015
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And it can affect almost anyone, regardless of age, sex, health, or even species.
One day last September, eight schoolchildren drifted off in class in the space of an hour.
In January, a local woman told Russian journalists that her cat had even come down with the disease, falling into a deep sleep following a bizarre outburst of hyperactivity in the early hours of the morning that saw it attack the dog and bite his owner.
While the disease has baffled doctors, locals say there are several common factors to the attacks. They tend to come in waves, they seem to be more common during a thaw than when the ground is frozen, and, say some, there is a correlation with wind direction....Leave a comment:
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Mysterious Kazakhstan Sleeping Sickness ‘Could Spread’http://www.newsweek.com/mysterious-k...-spread-311324By Felicity Capon 3/4/15 at 12:55 PMA leading Russian professor investigating the causes of the mysterious sleeping disorder affecting hundreds of residents in Kalachi, a village in northern Kazakhstan, believes that the 'disease' could spread, and admits that scientists are still unsure as to what is causing it. His warning comes as the ninth wave of the unidentified illness hit the area this week.
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“The disease is characterised by the fact that the sick immerse [themselves] in unusually long sleep, while to bring them into full consciousness is practically impossible on the first day,” says professor Leonid Rikhvanov from the Department of Geo-ecology and Geo-chemistry at the Tomsk Polytechnic University in Russia, who has spent four years studying the area. Worryingly, he says that the long-term effects of the disease are unknown and so far unstudied.
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Rikhvanov believes that the root of the terrifying illness could lie in an old Soviet uranium mine in the nearby area of Krasnogorsk
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Rikhvanov does not presently believe the disease to be a completely new one, as the symptoms are similar to chronic fatigue syndrome disease, caused by radiation, but says that if cases continued to grow, and there is still no scientific consensus, it could be classed as a new disease....
That's the first I've heard that CFS is caused by radiation but that is interesting. I think the first recognition of CFS was the 'outbreak' in Incline Village, NV.
Rev Infect Dis. 1991 Jan-Feb;13 Suppl 1:S39-44.
Chronic fatigue syndrome in northern Nevada.
Daugherty SA1, Henry BE, Peterson DL, Swarts RL, Bastien S, Thomas RS.
Abstract
The clinical and laboratory findings from studies of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) from northern Nevada are summarized. Physicians caring for these patients have estimated that greater than 400 patients with CFS from northern Nevada and nearby communities in California were identified between 1984 and 1988. As a result of these studies, a cluster of clinical and laboratory features associated with the illness in moderately to severely affected patients has been identified: profound fatigue of prolonged duration; cervical lymphadenopathy; recurrent sore throat and/or symptoms of influenza; loss of cognitive function manifested by loss of memory and loss of ability to concentrate; myalgia; impairment of fine motor skills; abnormal findings on magnetic resonance imaging brain scan; depressed level of antibody to Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) nuclear antigen; elevated level of antibody to EBV early antigen restricted component; elevated ratio of CD4 helper to CD8 suppressor cells; and strong evidence of association of this syndrome with infection with human herpesvirus 6. More-serious and longer-lasting neurologic impairments, including seizures, psychosis, and dementia, have also been observed in some of these patients.
PMID: 185054Incline Village was one of the sites monitored in this study by the Nevada Bureau of Mines:
Radon Studies in Nevada (Fall 1994)
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Source: http://rt.com/news/236745-sleepy-hol...ious-disorder/
Sleepy Hollow reborn: Kazakhstan villagers report new cases of mysterious disorder
Published time: March 02, 2015 12:09
New cases of the inexplicable disorder, dubbed ?Sleepy Hollow,? have appeared in Kalachi, the village in Kazakhstan where every tenth villager, including children, has mysteriously fallen asleep in broad daylight, some unable to wake up for days on end.
"The ninth wave of the disease has started,? Amanbek Kalzhanov, head of the administration of Esil district, told Interfax. ?Yesterday two people ? a man and a woman ? became sick. Since the outbreak of the disease 120 people have fallen ill."
According to Kalzhanov, the overall situation in Kalachi, a village in northern Kazakhstan, is under control. The local hospital is fully operational, along with a school, attended by about 40 students.
Meanwhile, most of the inhabitants of the village, which used to be home to over 600 residents, have agreed to move to other areas, local official Sergey Kulagin said...Leave a comment:
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Still no clue as to what is causing sleep sickness in Kazakh village
By Anna Liesowska & Derek Lambie
16 February 2015
Radiation expert says radon gas is not to blame, as anxious residents open their hearts about the difficult decision to leave the place they call home.
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The growing crisis comes as concerned residents continue to leave in their droves, with officials saying they plan to close off the entire village by May.
More than a dozen experts are working in the area to fathom out what is causing the epidemic, with unexplained high levels of carbon monoxide having been reported in the air.
But Sergei Lukashenko, the director of Kazakhstan's National Nuclear Centre's Radiation Safety and Ecology Institute, insisted he is 'positive this is not radon'.
He added: 'Carbon monoxide is definitely a factor, but I can?t tell you whether this is the main and vital factor. The question is why it does not go away. We have some suspicions as the village has a peculiar location and weather patterns frequently force chimney smoke to go down instead of up.'...
I would not underestimate the harm inversions and wood smoke can do.
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Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...n-9989841.html
Mysterious sleeping illness that knocks sufferers unconscious for days plagues Kazakhstani town
In the summer 60 cases of the mysterious disease were reported
Jack Simpson
Tuesday 20 January 2015
Kazakhstani medical experts have been left scratching their heads over a mysterious sleeping illness that has led to residents of a town in the north of the country falling asleep for days at a time.
Kalachi, a town in the Akmola Region, has been given the title Sleepy Hollow , with one in ten of its residents having been struck down by the unexplained illness in the last two years.
The first case was confirmed in 2013, but locals say that the disease has been present in the town as early as 2010.
Since then it has grown rapidly, with a reported 126 cases confirmed...
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Re: Kazakhstan: Outbreak of unexplained cerebral disease
Villagers in Kazakhstan Are Falling Asleep En Masse for No Apparent Reason
December 15, 2014
Mark Hay
Residents of a small village in Kazakhstan are falling asleep at random, sometimes for days at a time, and no one knows why. Since the spring of 2013, the village of Kalachi in the Akmolinsk district (whose name derives from aqmola, a Kazakh term that ominously translates to the white tomb), 150 miles south of the Russian border, has suffered from at least four outbreaks of the disorder. As of the latest wave, from late August to early September, over 60 people, or 10 percent of the town's population of 680 had been affected. Last week, RT released a documentary on the problem titled "Sleepy Hallow, Kazakhstan." Locals told the reporters that they fear one day they'll fall asleep and never wake up again.
Classified as an encephalopathy of unclear origin?the highfalutin term for a weird brain disorder we can't figure out?villagers who do not simply keel over while moving or working report feeling weakness, dizziness, and memory and motor control loss. At least two children have reported hallucinations as well: Misha Plyukhin saw flying horses and light bulbs, his mother with eight eyes and a trunk, and snakes and worms in his bed, trying to eat his arms; Rudolf Boyarinos cannot remember his visions, but four people had to calm and subdue him as he screamed "monsters!" The sleep is so deep that some locals fear an old man they assumed was dead could have been buried alive.
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Re: Kazakhstan: Outbreak of unexplained cerebral disease
http://en.cihan.com.tr/news/Mystical...CHMTYxMDkyOC80
Mystical sleeping sickness rampant in Kazakhstan
ASTANA - 27.11.2014 13:33:24
A mysterious illness that puts people to sleep has been for almost two years rampant in a small Kazakh village called Kalachi.
Kazakhstan?s Healthcare and Social Development Ministry told Trend Nov. 26 that a working group that investigates the strange sleeping sickness has ruled out its viral or bacterial nature.
?The preliminary results of the studies on biomaterials taken from the sick allow for the moment to rule out the viral and bacterial nature of the disease,? the ministry said...Leave a comment:
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Re: Kazakhstan: Outbreak of unexplained cerebral disease
http://english.pravda.ru/society/ano...ng_sickness-0/
Mysterious sleeping sickness terrifies Kazakhstan
04.09.2014
In the village of Kalachi, in the Akmolinsky region of Kazakhstan, another outbreak of mysterious "sleeping sickness" was reported. Three villagers were taken to hospital with symptoms of "encephalopathy of unknown etiology," Interfax reports with reference to the press service of the regional police.
On Wednesday, September 3, the local hospital received three patients - a 64-year-old woman and two minors - of 12 and 17 years of age.
As of September 2, as many as 15 people were hospitalized with symptoms of the so-called "sleeping sickness". The number of those, who either suffered or recovered from the disease, made up more than 60 people - about ten percent of the population of the 680-strong village of Kalachi.
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Kazakh media say that the number of those, who suffered from "sleeping sickness" is a lot larger than was officially reported. According to KTK TV channel, soon after celebrations of the start of the new school year on September 1, nine children went into hibernation. Having come back home from school, they would literally collapse, parents said. After waking up, the children were behaving inappropriately. They suffered from delusions and hallucinations; some had to be tied up as it seemed that they intended to hurt themselves.
In addition to children, seven adults fell victims of the mysterious disease as well. Among them, there is a doctor of the rural hospital. The woman has been sleeping for five days already. Her neighbors help the woman at her home.
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Some of the villagers have been hospitalized with the same diagnosis several times. In all cases, the patients suffered from fatigue, drowsiness, memory loss and weakness. After "waking up", the people do not return to their normal lifestyle. Adults complain of memory lapses and headaches, while children show very little activity.
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Re: Kazakhstan: Outbreak of unexplained cerebral disease
http://www.interfax.kz/?lang=eng&int...s&news_id=7514
Mysterious lethargy disease still raging in Kalachi village
KOKSHETAU. Sept 5 (Interfax-Kazakhstan) ? More than sixty incidences of "sleeping sickness" have been recorded in the village of Kalachi, Akmola region, since March 2013.
Since the end of August this year, 21 people have been reported sick with sever fatigue symptoms with four new cases this week: a 23 year old woman, a woman of 64 and two teenagers of 12 and 17 years old.
Experts from the Kurchatov National Nuclear Center and Research Institute for Radiation Medicine and Ecology (Semey) have been invited to the scene to study the case...Leave a comment:
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Re: Kazakhstan: Outbreak of unexplained cerebral disease
Published Date: 2014-09-14 20:13:11
Subject: PRO/AH/EDR> Undiagnosed cerebral disease - Kazakhstan (03)
Archive Number: 20140914.2772224
UNDIAGNOSED CEREBRAL DISEASE - KAZAKHSTAN (03)
***********************************************
A ProMED-mail post
ProMED-mail is a program of the
International Society for Infectious Diseases
Date: 19 Sep 2014
Source: En.Trend.az [edited]
The residents of the Kazakh village of Kalachi are racking with a mysterious disease that could not be explained by a wide range of specialists in medicine and many other specialized fields.
The villagers complain of severe fatigue and constant desire to sleep. They can suddenly fall asleep in the most unexpected places -- at work, at school, in the street -- and sleep for several days. Nobody and nothing can wake them up. And after waking up, some of them lose memory, have hallucinations, and behave like in a dream.
The 1st case of the manifestation of this sleeping disease occurred in Kalachi in March 2013. And the disease breaks out once every few months. Ten percent of the village population exceeding 600 people has been infected with this disease.
The strangest thing is that despite the authorities' investigation with the involvement of local and invited specialists, the cause of the sickness remains a mystery. The scientists conducted thousands of experiments on soil, air and water in the village and the diseased patients, but the only thing they could say is that the people are quite healthy and the symptoms they experience do not fit into any of the known diseases.
Sleeping sickness, which is also called "human African trypanosomiasis," is a widespread tropical disease. But besides a permanent desire to sleep, the symptoms of this disease are different. Moreover, African disease is spread by a bite of an infected tsetse fly living dozens of thousands kilometers far from Kazakhstan. And bacteriological and viral tests on Kalachi's villagers have proved negative. Local people are in despair. They think the authorities are hiding the truth about the disease and invent a number of fantastic explanations for its reasons, from biology experiments conducted by western laboratories to aliens and God's punishment.
However, there are some versions which are more real at 1st glance. Kalachi is located in the vicinity of the former Soviet secret uranium mining town Krasnogorsk, which was closed after the Soviet Union's collapse about 20 years ago. Some people associate abnormal sleep with the abandoned uranium mine. But scientists working at the scene say that the radiation level is normal across the village. Moreover, the unfortunate Kalachi is the only village affected by this strange sickness, and the dwellers of other settlements located nearby and even those who worked in the uranium mine for all their life are safe and sound.
Local nuclear specialists also give assurances that radiation sickness does not produce sleeping effects. Western experts share their opinion on this issue. "In my work so far, I have never heard of radiation causing any sleeping disease," Britt-Marie Drottz Sjoberg, psychology professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, who has lead and participated in a number of research projects related to public reactions to radiation, radioactive waste and environmental issues, told Trend by e-mail.
"I doubt that uranium is the cause of the sleeping sickness... There is no such thing as "normal" for radiation levels... They should be published and compared to places without uranium mining operations," Janette Sherman, M.D., specializing in internal medicine and toxicology with an emphasis on chemicals and nuclear radiation, who earlier worked for the Atomic Energy Commission at the University of California in Berkeley and for the U.S. Navy Radiation Defense Laboratory in San Francisco, and who published research on nuclear radiation, also told Trend by e-mail.
Now all the people suffering from the disease in Kalachi are diagnosed with encephalopathy of unknown origin, i.e. brain damage by unknown substance. The substance was not defined.
Kazakh Health Ministry reported that the disease had classic signs of narcolepsy, and some psychologists and psychiatrists explain the disease by massive psychosis.
"There have been many such unexplained events. Some of them have been caused by agents, such as a virus, that were discovered later, such as von economo encephalitis, others by vaccines; most have been unexplained medically and assumed to be mass hysteria," Maurice Preter, M.D., Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry on the faculty of Columbia University's College of Physicians & Surgeons and Adj. Associate Professor of Neurology at SUNY Downstate Medical Center told Trend by e-mail.
A special commission was created from specialists from several Kazakh ministries to investigate the situation in Kalachi. But the only problem revealed by the commission in the village so far was the higher level of radon gas in air. This gas, used in anesthesiology, could be the cause of the abnormal sleep, according to one of the numerous versions, the scientists say. However, the commission did not announce when the investigation is expected to be completed.
The last wave of the mysterious disease happened on 1 Sep [2014?]. Nine children fell asleep immediately after a festive ceremony on the occasion of the new academic year and slept for 2 days. And this time, the patients' symptoms have aggravated compared to the last year [2013]. The diseased people have nightmares, hallucinations and some signs of insanity. Thus, the problem requires a prompt solution and should not be delayed.
[Byline: Elena Kosolapova]
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Communicated by:
<promed@promedmail.org>
[The article uses the words infected and disease, yet it has not been proven to be a disease, or a toxin or a genetic abnormality.
In 1916, von Economo 1st described encephalitis lethargica (EL), a CNS disorder presenting with pharyngitis followed by sleep disorder, basal ganglia signs (particularly parkinsonism) and neuropsychiatric sequelae. Since the 1916-1927 epidemic, only sporadic cases have been described. Pathological studies revealed an encephalitis of the midbrain and basal ganglia, with lymphocyte (predominantly plasma cell) infiltration. The EL epidemic occurred during the same time period as the 1918 influenza pandemic, and the 2 outbreaks have been linked in the medical literature. However, von Economo and other contemporary scientists thought that the 1918 influenza virus was not the cause of EL. Recent examination of archived EL brain material has failed to demonstrate influenza RNA, adding to the evidence that EL was not an invasive influenza encephalitis. By contrast, the findings of intrathecal oligoclonal bands (OCB) and beneficial effects of steroid treatments have provoked the hypothesis that EL may be immune-mediated.
Radon is a decay product from uranium. While radon does not produce the "sleeping syndrome" described here, it is not impossible to believe that it may be combining with something else, or exacerbating or initiating an immune mediated response.
The article also mentions human African trypanosomiasis, also known as sleeping sickness. It is a parasitic disease transmitted by the bite of the Glossina insect, commonly known as the tsetse fly. While the article rightly indicates that this insect is a long distance away, one has to wonder whether the insect could have been carried on a storm, or indeed whether a storm was present prior to the illness presentation. Further, what if another insect in the region is now capable of carrying the parasite?
Nodding syndrome is a syndrome with an undiagnosed cause or an available treatment. There are few similarities here, as nodding disease or nodding syndrome has thus far not been diagnosed outside of east Africa. However, one has to wonder whether this is similar in some way.
The description of narcolepsy found in the NIND website (http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/n...narcolepsy.htm) sounds similar. According to the NHLBI: "Some research suggests that environmental toxins may play a role in triggering narcolepsy. Toxins may include heavy metals, pesticides and weed killers" http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/heal...ar/causes.html.
Also see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2930404/: "One etiologic model for narcolepsy suggests that some environmental toxin selectively and irreversibly destroys hypocretin-producing cells in individuals with human leukocyte antigen (HLA) DQB1*0602." Hypocretins are chemicals in the brain that help promote wakefulness. HLA marker for narcolepsy is HLA-DQB1*0602, which is found in over 90 percent of patients with narcolepsy-cataplexy (http://med.stanford.edu/psychiatry/n...sy/faq1.html#1).
While environmental toxins are mentioned as being a triggering agent for narcolepsy, the article does not specifically tell us whether heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, chromium) were tested for in the environment or in the individuals. The article mentions toxins but not specifically which ones. There is a huge variety of toxins. One also wonders what samples were used to test the individuals and whether any genetic abnormalities were identified.
The fact that it may be a reoccurrence makes me wonder what is changing in the environment: more mosquitoes and therefore more pesticides? a change in the weather and more radon gas? a drought and change in the water supply? The possibilities that may or may not have been investigated are lengthy.
However, with various countries and agencies involved in the investigation, I am wondering why no one has submitted some of these samples to a "Time of Flight" detection to try to determine what the possible cause may be. - Mods.TG/MLLeave a comment:
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Re: Kazakhstan: Outbreak of unexplained cerebral disease
Here's some support for your interest in the temperature spike relationship, Shannon, though it's from a geological effect viewpoint.
http://siberiantimes.com/other/other...ping-disorder/
There are more details and many photographs of the area. It does look very dusty so I don't think a biological toxin can be ruled out. I hope the Tomsk scientists are able to investigate. Symptoms sounds much like narcolepsy/catalepsy, but hopefully this is a temporary condition, unlike that.Siberian experts say they can solve the cause of mystery 'sleeping disorder'
By The Siberian Times reporter
16 May 2014
The shocking 'sleep epidemic' in a village and nearby Soviet ghost town in Kazakhstan maybe caused by a nearby disused uranium plant.
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Scientists in Tomsk say they are convinced it is from a very different cause.
Leonid Rikhvanov, professor of geo-ecology and geo-chemistry of Tomsk Polytechnical University, said: 'We know about this problem and are happy to take part in solving it. We have even obtained some results. We have studied the samples of uranium ore which Kalachi citizens sent us.
'We tested the samples and came to the conclusion that radon gas is the reason, but it is not because of radioactive radon. It comes from chemical effect of the gas. In other words, the disease is caused by evaporation from the mine.
But Tomsk scientists must prove it, and to do so they would need to visit and establish why some families are hit, and not others.
'Unfortunately, the agreement for our help in this matter is not yet signed,' he said. One thought is more tests on heating vapours...Leave a comment:
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Re: Kazakhstan: Outbreak of unexplained cerebral disease
Intriguing. 7,000 tests done and thy still cannot find the cause. Can you be struck with this problem more than once? Could it be familial? Sudden ambient temperature spikes triggering episodes might suggest an organism which blooms, such as mold's algae's or fungus, or hatches like an insect. I wish I could be there to help.Leave a comment:
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