ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, September 30, 1993                   TAG: 9309300256
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: GENEVA                                LENGTH: Short

CUBAN EPIDEMIC ENDS AFTER AFFLICTING 50,000

A house-to-house vitamin distribution program has quelled an unprecedented epidemic of eye disease that sickened more than 50,000 Cubans, but the cause of the malady remains a mystery.

Bjorn Thylefors, head of a World Health Organization investigation team, said Wednesday that a combination of an unknown poison and poor nutrition in Cuba apparently was to blame.

American and Cuban scientists were working to identify the poison, probably a household insecticide or a contaminated food product, he said.

The disease has been identified as optic neuritis. Victims either suffer pain and weight loss, from which they recover, or their eyesight is irreversibly affected. About 1,500 Cubans have suffered acute eye damage, with vision reduced to less than one-third of normal. - Associated Press 


 by CNB