HHS Provides Assistance in Addressing a Neurological Illness in the Republic of Panamá

October 4, 2006 - The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has sent four experts in epidemiology and laboratory assistance from the HHS Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to help the Panamanian Health Ministry investigate a fatal neurological syndrome that has resulted in 21 cases and 12 deaths (a fatality rate of over 50 percent) reported from September 20, 2006, through October 2, 2006. An epidemiologist from the HHS/CDC regional office in Guatemala; an HHS/CDC Field Epidemiology Training Program (FETP) trainee from Panamá; and a Spanish-speaking staffer from the HHS/CDC National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH), who is already in Panamá City, will join the team.

The Health Ministry in Panamá declared a national epidemic alert on October 3, 2006. The 21 cases have a clinical presentation consistent with a new clinical syndrome, which appears similar to Guillain-Barré syndrome (an acquired syndrome that consists of progressive, ascending motor weakness), but also includes an associated, acute renal failure. This syndrome has not been detected before in Panamá, and contacts of patients are not affected, which suggests the possibility of intoxication as a cause. Ninety percent of the patients have been men, only adults have been infected, and while the age-range of patients is from 25 years of age to 85 years of age, most are over 60 years of age.

Panamá: Update on Poisoning

October 13, 2006 - Experts believe contaminated cough and anti-allergy syrups made in a laboratory operated by the Panamanian Government might have caused the illness of unknown origin that appeared in Panamá in September 2006. Panamanian officials now know that generic sugar-free cough syrups, some that contain anti-histamines, often prescribed for diabetics, were mixed with diethylene glycol, an alcohol used as a coolant in brake fluids and hydraulic systems. Scientists from HHS, through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), helped to discover the toxic adulterant. HHS deployed experts to assist the Panamanian Ministry of Health, and flew tissue samples from patients to the United States to examine them in the HHS/CDC laboratories in Atlanta, Georgia. HHS/FDA will send more experts to further assist in this process.

The resulting illness has neurological effects, and progresses to renal failure and has a high mortality rate. By this date, 21 people have died in Panamá.

Last revised: October 10, 2007