Mystery ailment: US evacuates more of its workers from China
THE GUANGZHOU CONSULATE, WHERE THE INCIDENTS OCCURRED, IS THE ONLY U.S. INSTALLATION IN CHINA AUTHORISED TO PROCESS IMMIGRANT VISAS AND HANDLE ADOPTIONS.
WASHINGTON: The US has evacuated several more government workers out of the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou after medical testing revealed they might have been affected by unexplained health incidents that have already hurt American personnel in Cuba, the state department said on Wednesday.
State department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said “a number of individuals” have been brought to the US. They are in addition to a US worker in Guangzhou who was evacuated earlier, as the Trump administration had already disclosed.
The new evacuations come after the US sent a medical team to Guangzhou to screen American government workers. The team arrived earlier this week, and Nauert said the medical screenings were ongoing. She said they are being offered to “any personnel who have noted concerning symptoms or wanted baseline screening.”
A US official said the evacuated Americans are being brought for testing to the University of Pennsylvania. That’s where doctors have been treating and studying patients evacuated from the US embassy in Havana.
The official wasn’t authorised to discuss the situation publicly and requested anonymity.
It wasn’t clear whether the incidents occurred in the consulate or at the homes of diplomats and other employees, many of them located in luxury high rises.
The China incidents have raised fears the unexplained incidents that started in Cuba in 2016 have expanded. The US government has deemed those incidents “specific attacks” on American workers but hasn’t publicly identified a cause or culprit. Most of the incidents were accompanied by bizarre, unexplained sounds that initially led US investigators to suspect a sonic attack.
The American government worker who was removed from China earlier reported “subtle and vague, but abnormal, sensations of sound and pressure.” China said last month that it had found no explanation.