US staffer gets ‘abnormal’ sound injury in China

— A U.S. government employee in China suffered brain trauma linked to “abnormal sounds” that resembled the still-unexplained injuries that befell U.S. and Canadian diplomats in Cuba last year, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday.

U.S. and Chinese authorities are investigating after the unnamed employee, who was assigned to the southern city of Guangzhou, was diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI).

The U.S. embassy in Beijing issued a health alert Wednesday over the incident, while saying it does not know what caused the symptoms or of any similar situations in the country.

Last year 24 U.S. diplomats and their family members in Cuba fell victim to mysterious “attacks” that left them with injuries resembling brain trauma. Ten Canadian diplomats and their relatives also suffered a strange illness.

Both countries scaled back their presence on the Caribbean island due to the problem, which continues to baffle investigators and has strained U.S. diplomatic relations with Havana.

“The medical indications are very similar and entirely consistent with the medical indications that have taken place to Ameri- cans working in Cuba,” Pompeo said in Washington.

“We are working to figure out what took place both in Havana and now in China as well,” he said.

Jinnie Lee, a spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy in Beijing, said the employee experienced a variety of physical symptoms between late 2017 and April 2018.

The person was sent to the United States and diagnosed with MTBI on May 18.

The embassy’s health alert says the employee “recently reported subtle and vague, but abnormal, sensations of sound and pressure.”

“While in China, if you experience any unusual acute auditory or sensory phenomena accompanied by unusual sounds or piercing noises, do not attempt to locate their source. Instead, move to a location where the sounds are not present,” the embassy said.

In Washington for talks with Pompeo, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the U.S. should avoid politicizing the case.

“We don’t want to see that this individual case would be magnified, complicated or even politicized,” Wang told reporters.

“China has been investigating this matter in a very responsible manner.”