Mystery disease affects 100 at Bangladesh school

DHAKA, July 14 (Reuters) More than 100 students and teachers from a school in Bangladesh have been admitted to hospital after suffering convulsions, police said today.

The cause of their sudden illness was being investigated.

The victims fell ill at Adiabad School and College near Narshingdi district town, 55 km northeast of the capital Dhaka, a police inspector said.

Twenty-three people died in Bangladesh in 2004 from a mysterious disease later diagnosed as an encephalitis, or inflammation of the brain caused by a viral infection. Dozens more were infected with the disease, which some had feared was bird flu.

Bird flu in Bangladesh since March this year has forced authorities to cull nearly 255,000 chickens and destroy more than 2.2 million eggs.

Authorities said there was no case of human infection.

REUTERS AM RK2228