El Carmen de Bolivar (Colombia) (AFP) - A mystery
illness is plaguing girls in this town in northern Colombia, and locals say a
vaccine against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, or HPV, is to
blame. First their hands and feet feel cold. Then they go pale and cannot move.
Some convulse and fall to the floor.
In El Carmen de Bolivar, near the port of Cartagena,
dozens of teenagers have experienced similar symptoms. Some have even lost
consciousness. "They vaccinated me in May and I started fainting in
August. My legs became heavy and I couldn't feel my hands anymore. When I woke
up, I was in the hospital," recalled 15-year-old Eva Mercado. She passed
out seven times in a month.
For most of the families affected in this town of
67,000, there is no doubt about what is causing the problem. They place the
blame squarely on a vaccination campaign against HPV, one of the most common
sexually transmitted diseases, which can trigger cervical cancer. The epidemic
has grabbed national headlines, and President Juan Manuel Santos has been
forced to weigh in.
Insisting the HPV vaccination campaign was safe,
Santos suggested the epidemic was no more than a "phenomenon of collective
suggestion."
Source:
AFP
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