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STORY:
The Sleeping Sickness of Kazakhstan.
First reported in 2013 in Kalachi, a village in the northern part of Kazakhstan, 14% of
the population has been affected. People seem to be falling asleep for a great length
of time, waking only after weeks spent in slumber in a state that doctors describe as
comatose.
OTHER VERSIONS
1. 'Sleeping Sickness': The Mysterious Village in Kazakhstan Where People Fall
Asleep For Days.
2. Doctors Cant Explain Why People in Kazakhstan are Falling Asleep For Days.
HOAX OR FACT:
Fact with some missing information.
ANALYSIS:
These strange stories in circulation online since at least couple of years talk about a
Sleeping Sickness in a Kazakhstan Village, where people fall asleep suddenly at
random for a great length of time, sometimes for days. It is also said that doctors
could not explain the reason behind this mysterious 'Sleeping Sickness'. Yes, the
claims are facts, but researchers later came up with plausible reasons behind the
sleeping sickness reported in couple of remote Kazakhstan villages.
MYSTERY SOLVED?
In mid 2015, Kazakhstans deputy PM, Berdibek Saparbaev announced that the mystery of sleeping
sickness of people in Kazakhstan villages has at last been solved. On behalf of the Kazakhstan
government, Berdibek Saparbaev said the cause does indeed lie in the nearby Uranium Mines, like
suspected by some earlier. The uranium mines were closed since the early 1990s after the fall of the Soviet
Union, but at times a concentration of Carbon Monoxide occurs there. Officials say the released carbon
monoxide gas from the nearby mine reduces the oxygen content in the air, and this is the real reason for
the sleeping sickness in these Kazakhstan villages. Researchers concluded that the strange 'Sleeping
Sickness' was caused by heightened levels of Carbon Monoxide and Hydrocarbons in the air.
However, some people disagreed with the findings about the carbon monoxide reasons, and said that that
other gases like Carbon Dioxide or Methane could also be responsible for the sleeping sickness. Even the
study from Kazakhstan government mentioned that hydrocarbonslikely methane gaswere also coming
out of the uranium mine. Authorities started evacuation of the two Kazakhstan villages, relocating the
residents.
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