global pollution

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Affiliated Hospital of Dongpu University of Science and Technology.

Led by the white-haired vice president, they entered a large conference room.

On the long conference table, there were only two doctors wearing glasses, who seemed to be at least 50 years old.

The vice president introduced: "This is Scholar Niu, and the others are colleagues of the foundation."

Both doctors stood up with serious faces, nodded for a moment, and then sat back down again.

Niu Changshou seemed to be used to this for a long time and didn't care.

He clapped his hands, and the sound echoed in the somewhat empty conference room, "I also know that your time is precious, so don't delay, tell me the specific situation."

"Ok."

The vice president also walked to the conference table, picked up the documents that had been prepared, and reported to:

"The earliest suspicious case can be traced back to a year ago. The first patient was 54 years old. He came to the hospital for diagnosis because of long-term chest pain. The symptoms lasted for about three months. After examination, he was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension. The cause of the disease was unknown. Sudden epilepsy, brain death an hour later, subsequent multi-organ failure, cardiac arrest, because the family members disagreed with the autopsy, so no further information could be obtained."

"The patients of the second case and the third case were treated at a similar time. The patient of the second case was a 32-year-old man who had a car accident due to fatigue driving and suffered severe head injuries. After more than ten hours of rescue, he was basically out of life. Dangerous, but on the night of admission to the ICU, she died of suffocation while the oxygen tube was inserted; the patient in the third case was a 9-year-old girl. Shouting and yelling, she was diagnosed with specific phobias by other hospitals, during the treatment, she was found to have respiratory failure many times during sleep, so she came to our hospital for treatment, but that night she was found to have jumped to her death from the ward on the fifth floor."

"The autopsies of the patients in the second and third cases revealed brain abnormalities, with a large number of hollow-shaped holes under the cortex, suspected to be parasitic by some kind of parasite, but no worm was found anywhere in the body."

Chapter 312 ** Type insectophobia

"There are a lot of hollow holes in the brain?"

Xia Ren couldn't help but asked aloud.

When he heard that the first case was a nocturnal sudden epileptic death, he didn't pay much attention.

It’s okay to hear the second case, brain damage is fatal, but in the third case, when the nine-year-old girl suddenly yelled every night and was diagnosed as a phobia, he unconsciously It reminds me of Zhao Roulai.

This symptom is similar to Zhao Rou's, and the doctor in Jupiter City once consulted Zhao Rou. Although it was discussed that the probability of suffering from central sleep apnea hypopnea syndrome is relatively high, but Yu Jingjing also said, It is also possible that she suffers from a co-occurring phobia.

Poor sleep at night, coupled with phobias, Zhao Rou's symptoms are too similar to those of the nine-year-old girl

In particular, the final autopsy revealed a large number of hollow-shaped holes in the patient's brain, suspected to be affected by some kind of parasite, which reminded him directly of the long white worm he had seen in Zhao Rou's eyes in his dream.

"Could it be that after the worm reproduces, it can break through the dream and come to reality to devour the human brain?"

Xia Ren felt his scalp go numb.

The vice president who introduced the situation looked at Xia Ren, temporarily put down the materials in his hand, and asked, "Do you have any questions?"

"No, you continue."

Xia Ren planned to wait until he finished reporting the situation.

Niu Changshou glanced at him and said nothing.

The vice president then continued: "These three cases were separated by about two months. Except for the patient in the first case who had a history of hypertension, the remaining two cases had no relevant medical history."

"Then a month later, the fourth case came..."

Listening to the vice president's narration, everyone gradually understood the process of the disease's development and spread.

Since the first case appeared in December last year, there was no abnormality, but by April this year, similar cases suddenly increased, and all patients were spared, all died of various reasons. At that time, the cumulative number of cases had increased to 100.

Their main causes of death include cerebral artery steal syndrome, respiratory failure, acute heart failure, acute coronary syndrome, hepatic encephalopathy, cerebral hemorrhage, multiple system atrophy, chorea minor...

These diseases are diverse, and patients of all ages have them. They seem to be unrelated, but the patients all have one thing in common, that is, waking up at night and raving.

However, Dongpu City is so big, and the number of people dying from various diseases is close to a thousand every day. At that time, these 100 people did not attract much attention, or no one connected them at all.

After April, the situation gradually became a little bit wrong.

Because of the extremely low similarity of the previous cases, the scattered patients and basically different hospitals, no one could connect them. But after April, the changes began.

The first case with signs of infection was a couple. First, the man was admitted to the hospital because of myocarditis. According to his girlfriend, he often had nightmares in the previous half month, but the content of the dream was forgotten when he woke up. Two days after the man was hospitalized, His girlfriend also had similar symptoms.

Of course, this did not attract much attention at the time, it was just a coincidence, and it was not revealed until a few months later.

Since the first suspected case appeared in December last year, as of now, the cumulative number of suspected cases in Dongpu City alone has risen to 800. When the population was counted according to the routine at the end of October, it was found that Dongpu City had been infected in the past four months. The fatality rate of the resident population has increased by [-] percentage points compared with the previous one. Looking back, it was found that the mortality rate began to rise slowly since May this year. This finally attracted the attention of the Affiliated Hospital of Dongpu University of Science and Technology. They started The deeper the investigation was conducted, the more I was shocked by the terrible consequences hidden behind these cases.

"Due to various reasons, the statistics are not accurate, 800 cases is just a very vague number, maybe less, or more, and..."

The vice president paused when he said this: "And this does not include the floating population of Dongpu City this year."

If it can be confirmed that this is a new type of pollution-type disease, and it is contagious...

Just thinking about it makes me feel cold all over.

The vice president turned on the projector and released a chart showing the trend of cases.

It can be clearly seen that May and September are a turning point respectively, especially in September, the curve that was originally slightly rising suddenly increased a lot after September, and the suspected cases showed an explosive growth. The number of new additions is several times that of the previous nine months.

The screen of the projector switched to a fan-shaped graph, and the vice president continued to introduce: "We can see that the main symptoms of all suspected cases are cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases and nervous system diseases, and there are also a few mental system diseases and circulatory system diseases. As well as respiratory diseases, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases accounted for 50.00% of all cases, neurological diseases accounted for 30.00%, and the rest accounted for less than 20.00%. If this is the case alone, there is no connection between them at all. However, No matter what kind of symptoms the patients show, they will definitely be accompanied by two problems..."

The screen of the projector switched again, and the entire fan-shaped graph was covered in translucent blue, with two symptoms written on it.

"One of them is sleep apnea hypopnea syndrome, and the second is specific phobia."

The deputy dean looked solemn and said: "I will temporarily classify them as ** type sleep apnea hypopnea syndrome, or if they are named according to the most prominent feature, it is

——** Type insectophobia. "

After he finished speaking, he looked at Niu Changshou and asked for his opinion.

Niu Changshou nodded, expressing his agreement with the name: "Please continue."

The vice president continued: "These investigations alone are not enough. To determine whether the **-type insectophobia meets the characteristics of an infectious disease, three key points must be met, namely the pathogen, the human body, and the environment in which they live."

"Unfortunately, we can only confirm one human body, pathogens and their environment for the three key points so far. We only have guesses at present, and we have not yet obtained definite evidence."

The screen on the projector switched again, and the vice president's tone became a little more serious.

On the screen, a dissected human brain appeared.

"Due to various reasons, out of the 33 suspected cases so far, we have only dissected the remains of [-] patients.

Whatever the prevalent symptoms of these patients, there was one striking feature that was found upon autopsy.

Their brains basically lost 5% - 30% of their mass! "

The picture is enlarged, and more details are presented to everyone.