Mystery disease which ’causes people to throw up blood’ kills ‘at least 15’

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A mystery disease which causes people to throw up blood has killed at least 15 people, it has been reported.

The unidentified illness in Tanzania also left more than 50 people needing hospital treatment, according to a health official.

But Dr Felista Kisandu, the district chief medical officer in the Chunya district in the Mbeye region, was later suspended over making the claim of a strange disease.

The nation has also ruled out an outbreak.

The doctor had reportedly admitted the emergence of the illness and said medical experts were investigating it.

She said most people who had been affected by men, who were diagnosed with liver and ulcer complications, according to The Citizen.

Dr Kisandu said: “This problem has not been widespread.

"It has happened in just a single administrative ward of Ifumbo where people vomit blood and die when they get to the hospital late.

"The cause of their illness has not been identified yet, but Tanzania's Health Ministry has ruled out an outbreak.”

Speaking on Saturday, she said samples of blood and local water were being tested by the country’s government for any traces of mercury contamination, the Sun reports.

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The country’s heath minister Dorothy Gwajika later ordered her suspension on Sunday.

She said this was because she had issued a statement on an alleged epidemic in violation of the law.

The minister claimed there was no proven case of any disease outbreak.

She ordered authorities to suspend her over “this misinformation which has caused unnecessary panic” and “to pave the way for investigation against her” within 10 days.

The region is said to have been hit by a similar illness back in 2018, which caused patients to suffer with high fever, vomiting blood and nausea.

Tanzania’s president, John Magufuli, has claimed coronavirus had been stopped in the country due to the power of prayer.

• Science
• Unsolved Mysteries
• Coronavirus

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