AP Article: Equipment Blamed in Radiation Deaths

["Jim Hardeman" <Jim_Hardeman@mail.dnr.state.ga.us>]

Equipment Blamed in Radiation Deaths 
 
Updated 2:22 PM ET June 27, 2000 

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - A medical instrument used to treat cancer was determined Tuesday to be the source of radiation that killed two people and sickened five in a northern Egyptian village, officials said. 
Authorities removed a radioactive cobalt rod - about 2.5 inches long and an inch in diameter - from the victims' home on Tuesday, Information Minister Safwat el-Sherif said, according to the Middle East News Agency. 

Authorities still don't know how the family got the piece of hospital equipment. Two of the family members hospitalized with radiation sickness said they'd had it in their home for about a year, thinking it was a valuable piece of metal, El-Sherif said. 

Instead, such radioactive rods are used in cancer treatment, placed near tumors in hopes of making them shrink. 

The rod was taken to the Nuclear Energy Authority, El-Sherif said. 

Hassan Fadel Hassan, 60, took his wife, sister and four children to a hospital Thursday after the whole family developed skin discoloration. Hours later, Hassan's 9-year-old son died. The family moved from the hospital near their Mit Halfa home, a few miles north of Cairo, to one in the capital, where Hassan died Sunday. 

His 9-year-old daughter, Hanem, was in critical condition. 



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