Sleep hollow


Sleep hollow is a possible medical disease in humans causing them to sleep for days or weeks at a time. This disease has only been reported in a remote village of Kalachi in Kazakhstan. It was first reported in March 2013 and to date it has affected 152 people. The disease is probably non-communicable. The disease disappeared for some time but has re-emerged in mid-2015. The disease affects all age groups.

Signs and symptoms

Other than excessive sleep, the disease causes vomiting, hallucination, nausea and disorientation. Victims of the disease often feel hallucinations like a "snail walking over their face". In a statement, a professor from Tomsk Polytechnic University, Leonid Rikhvanov, of the department of Geo-ecology and Geo-chemistry said that radon gas from the mine could be the cause of the symptoms.
The affected persons fall asleep during day-to-day activities and always feel sleepy. One of the doctors said, "You wake them up, they can speak to you, reply to you, but as soon as you stop talking and ask what bothers them, they just want to sleep, sleep, sleep.".

Cause

Kazakh officials have given their report about the disease stating that carbon monoxide, along with other hydrocarbons as a result of flooding of an abandoned Soviet-era uranium mine nearby is causing Sleep Hollow, by spreading through the village's air.

Diagnosis

The diagnosis is mainly clinical