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First their hands and feet feel cold. Then they go pale and cannot move. Some convulse and fall to the floor.
A mystery illness is plaguing girls in this town in northern Colombia, and locals say a vaccine against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, or HPV, is to blame.
In El Carmen de Bolivar, near the port of Cartagena, dozens of teenagers have experienced similar symptoms. Some have even lost consciousness.
"They vaccinated me in May and I started fainting in August. My legs became heavy and I couldn't feel my hands anymore. When I woke up, I was in the hospital," recalled 15-year-old Eva Mercado.
She passed out seven times in a month.
For most of the families affected in this town of 67,000, there is no doubt about what is causing the problem.
They place the blame squarely on a vaccination campaign against HPV, one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases, which can trigger cervical cancer.
The city's modest Nuestra Senora del Carmen hospital has been overwhelmed by a surge of unconscious teenage girls being wheeled through its doors.
Panicked fathers bring their daughters to the facility aboard their motorcycles, using the town's dirt roads.
DRUG ABUSE
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Doctors search, in vain, for possible cases of hypoglycemia or drug abuse.
According to hospital official Augusto Agamez, about 370 minors have checked into the facility. There was also one boy among them.
"There is no diagnosis or specific treatment," Agamez told AFP, stressing that the hospital was also helping families cope with the unknown illness.
When they come to, the young patients learn breathing techniques from nurses.
They also receive saline solution and oxygen. Once back on their feet, the girls go home, until the next spell.
"They brought me to the hospital 16 times last month," said Beatriz Martinez.
For the 15-year-old, it all started with headaches and backaches. Then her legs and hands gave in as well, forcing her mother to help her take baths.
The teenage girls affected by the mysterious malaise no longer go outside. Some don't even leave their homes.
"My daughter is not the same," said street vendor Jhon Jairo Mercaco, adding that, until now, his daughter had not been hospitalized since birth.
"I am desperate," said William Montes, a farmer who traveled down a mountain with his two daughters in a hammock to get them treated in town.
The epidemic has grabbed national headlines, and President Juan Manuel Santos has been forced to weigh in.
REBELS
Insisting the HPV vaccination campaign was safe, Santos suggested the epidemic was no more than a "phenomenon of collective suggestion."
Those comments were met with tremendous anger in El Carmen de Bolivar, already shaken by Bogota's decades-long battle against the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
In the 1980s, clashes pitting government forces against the leftist rebels killed about 100 people here.
US drug giant Merck, which makes the Gardasil vaccine, said it was "confident in the safety profile" of its product.
"We continue to monitor adverse events reporting and are following this situation closely," it said in a statement to AFP.
"Merck/MSD will continue to support the ministry's immunization and monitoring efforts in Colombia," the company said.
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Health Minister Alejandro Gaviria was met with boos and burned tires during a recent visit.
While promising a series of measures — gathering data on patients, setting up new tests, providing psychological counselling — the minister stopped short of suspending the vaccinations.
"We have no reason to stop at this time," Gaviria said.
Those words failed to reassure parents whose family and professional life have been upended by an illness whose origins are still unknown.
"This is not collective hysteria or manipulation. If you see your daughter have these symptoms after a vaccination, what else would you blame?" asked Maria Veronica Romera, the mother of a weakened 13-year-old.
Sale- Honda Accord 2008 EX bought brand new(leather ,alloys) mileage 49,000 for only call 08033228897 {{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{ VERDANT STORIES SECTION
TITLE>>>>>>FORBIDDEN
CONTINUED FROM YESTERDAY
.... After that day, the boys never went to the orange tree again and the story that it was a forbidden fruit was retold and everyone believed it, even the four boys. Though they knew it was not the forbidden fruits of the Bible but Mr. Jacob's forbidden fruits. Garba was angry when he learnt that it was Bawa who had told on him. They all began to avoid Bawa. But all these had been over thirty-five years ago. They grown and become men. Garba had turned out to be the star of them all, having excelled in school and had gone to Lagos and then to England. He returned to Dongongari and settled down. Now all the boys who went to the St. Aquinas now have children. But they all still sit together on weekends and talk of the past. Mr. Jacob and the forbidden fruits was always an exciting topic and they would laugh. "Only God know where the white master is today," Sule would say with nostalgia. "Perhaps long dead and buried," Tanko would say. "But he was a terror," Bawa reminded. He had succeeded. his father as the tobacco merchant in ,Jogongan even though he was once a banker. Garba would laugh. "Come to think of it, he was a good man. The lesson of the forbidden fruits was that of obedience. We ought to have obeyed him as our elder and teacher," he said: They all agreed with him. The End .... TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW...JOIN US TOMORROW FOR MORE ON THIS FUNNY AND EXCITING STORY }}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}
Sale- Honda Accord 2008 EX bought brand new(leather ,alloys) mileage 49,000 for only call 08033228897 {{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{ VERDANT STORIES SECTION 
