WHO links Angola illness to salt

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The World Health Organization (WHO) believes that contaminated salt may be behind the world's largest outbreak of bromide poisoning, in Angola.

More than 400 victims have been identified, and the numbers are rising.

The WHO has a team in place to identify how the victims came to ingest the substance, and try to get the outbreak under control.

Initial reports that the contamination could come from the oil industry or a rubbish dump have been dismissed.

Doctors from the community of Cacuaco, just north of the capital Luanda, began to realise something was wrong late last month.

People started complaining of dizziness, of muscle spasms and of having difficulty speaking and walking.

The numbers rapidly started to rise and some of the victims slipped into a kind of stupor. Doctors raised the alarm.

Mystery illness

According to the WHO there are now at least 414 victims, all showing symptoms of what they now believe to be bromide poisoning.

The vast majority of them are under the age of 15.

According to a spokesman for the WHO it is the biggest ever outbreak of bromide poisoning.

So far, four people have died, though the WHO says it is still too early to say whether they passed away because of bromide or some other unrelated problem.

At first it seemed that the region's oil industry may be to blame or a nearby rubbish dump.

But now the WHO's team of investigators believes the most likely culprit is contaminated salt.

They found traces of bromide in food and in salt but they still have not found the direct source.