Last December a mysterious illness broke out in a school in the Shelkovsk region of Chechnya. Symptoms included convulsions, nausea and breathing difficulties. The illness spread to neighbouring schools. Local doctors suspected mass poisoning, but when a delegation of medics arrived from Moscow, they attributed it to mass hysteria. Chechnya has been the scene of Russian military operations since 1994, so understandably those affected have little faith in the official verdict. Meanwhile, without knowing the nature of the suspected toxin, local doctors are at a loss as to how to treat their patients. The only way to break the impasse, public health experts say, is to send in an investigating team from outside the former Soviet block—one that the Chechens will trust. If mass hysteria is to blame, they say, the truth is the best medicine.
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