Mystery Disease Kills Dozens in Venezuela

A mystery disease has killed dozens of Warao Indians in recent months in a remote area of northeastern Venezuela, according to indigenous leaders and researchers from the University of California at Berkeley, who informed health officials here of the outbreak on Wednesday. At least 38 people have died, including 16 since the start of June, said Charles Briggs, an anthropologist at Berkeley, and Dr. Clara Mantini-Briggs, a medical researcher there. They are a husband-and-wife team known for their research on a cholera outbreak that killed 500 people in Venezuela in the early 1990s. Preliminary studies of the latest outbreak indicate that it may be a type of infectious rabies transmitted by bites from bats, the researchers said. The symptoms, which last three to six weeks, include partial paralysis, convulsions and an extreme fear of water, they said, and those who die become rigid just before death. The disease is believed to be fatal in most cases. “The authorities must investigate this outbreak with extreme urgency,” said Dr. Mantini-Briggs, a Venezuelan public health expert who has advised President Hugo Chávez’s government on policies to combat dengue fever. “Fear about the disease has intensified among the Warao while a preventative response is needed now.”