Hi Everyone:

I know our BIOMCH-L network is not a biomedical or medical list. But I think the following news regarding a strange disease, which is puzzling the whole medical communityto in China, may concern some experts in our community. If anyone has any comments, you may just respond to the address at the end of the text.

Thanks.

Yonghua Lu
Clemson University


-------------Message copied from: "China News Digest - US Regional News (CND-US III)" , Feb. 10, 1995-----------------

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2. Reader Calling for Help: A Young Chinese Girl Is Slowly Being
Eaten Away by a Strange Disease ............. 50
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Forwarded by: ding@sun10.sti.ac.cn (James Ding) 2/9/95

A young Chinese girl suffering from a mysterious infection that
causes progressive necrosis of her right forearm and left hand is arousing
great concern in the whole country. After fighting the disease for nearly
four months without any success, doctors in Beijing are appealing for
emergency help from colleagues arround the world.

The thirteen year old girl, Yang Xiaoxia comes from a poor farm family in
Shangdong province in east China. The girl has been tortured by the
mysterious disease for 8 months. The disease first began as a black spot
under a finger nail of her right hand suspected by a local clinic as a stab
wound caused by small stick or barb. A local doctor tried to get something
out of the black spot, but thing got worse. She began to suffer from
paronychiais and the infection soon spread to the whole right forearm and
the mid-finger on her left hand.

After treatments in five different hospitals in provincial capital Jinan
had all failed, the girls parents took her to Beijing. She has hospitalized
in a Beijing military hospital since early November, but the disease
continued to progress despite all out efforts by the city's most elite
doctors. The doctors have to amputate one third of her right forearm
and three fingers of her left hand. Although the spreed of the infection
seems a little bit slower, still there was no sign the infection will stop.

What puzzled the whole medical community is that from the appearance of
the affected surfaces it looks like an infection, but the infection have
failed to response to any exsiting antibiotics and hyperbaric oxgen
treatment. Bacterior cultures have always been negtive.

Officals of the city public health bureau have invited experts to probe
into the mystirous disease and welcomes any suggestions from doctors
arround the world.

We will continue to update information on Yang Xiaoxia's condition.
If you have any suggestions, please send e-mail to the following
address:

Huangxd@BEPC2.IHEP.AC.CN

Dr. Xiangdong Huang

Institute of Medical Information,
27 Taiping Road,
Beijing 100039,
China.
Tel:86-1-8215603
Fax:86-1-8213044