By Associated Press Reporter. A mystery illness has overwhelmed a small town in northern Colombia as scores of teenage girls have been hospitalized with symptoms that parents fear could be an adverse reaction to a popular vaccine against cervical cancer. Authorities say they still don't know what caused more than girls in El Carmen de Bolivar to come down with symptoms ranging from fainting to numbness in the hands and headaches.
Some have hinted that the town of 95, near Colombia's Caribbean coast could be experiencing a rare case of mass hysteria. Mystery: Authorities say they don't know what caused more than girls in El Carmen de Bolivar to grow ill. But parents say they were all injected with a vaccine against cervical cancer stock image. Parents are on edge however because all the girls, ranging in ages from 9 to 16, were injected in recent months with the vaccine Gardasil.
On Wednesday, residents marched peacefully to demand a thorough investigation. Francisco Vega, the town's mayor and a trained physician, told The Associated Press that illnesses first appeared at the end of May and have been steadily increasing since.
Over the weekend girls were rushed to hospitals, collapsing the town's limited medical facilities. None of their symptoms were life-threatening and all have since been released, he said. Echoing the assurances of national health and toxicology experts, who have travelled to the town to collect blood samples and investigate possible environmental hazards, he said there's no evidence the vaccine, which has undergone extensive testing and regulation globally, is to blame.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Alejandro Gaviria is criticizing hyped coverage by the media for stirring panic, saying concerns about their vaccine, which has been applied to 2. Veronica Trulin, head of communications in Latin America for Merck, said all lots of the vaccine, including the ones sent to Colombia, meet all required quality and safety standards.
