Did you know that sudden #deaths in #Chinese villagers are still a #mystery?
Since 1978, the Chinese Centre for the Prevenion & Control of Diseases has recorded ~ 400 cases of villagers in Yunnan province suddenly & mysteriously dying. Both children & adults have died, & almost always during the monsoon season at an elevation of 1800m - 2400m.
There are 3 working theories for the Yunnan Sudden Death Syndrome:
1) Keshan disease - an illness caused by selenium deficieny paired with the Coxsackievirus
2) Water pollution with Barium
3) #Mushroom #poisoning - 'Little White' (Trogia venenata), a mushroom native to the area & gathered by villagers was determined in 2010 to be the likely cause. The mushroom contains Barium, too.
Option 3) was favoured initially, but a paper in 'Applied and Environmental Microbiology' from 2012, found that the Barium levels were too low to be the likely cause.
Some villages lost a third of their population.
