Though the first incidence of the mysterious sleep took place in 2010, however it was considered normal and no much importance was attached to it until later years. With more and more incidence of the same sudden and puzzling sleep afflicting more and more residents, people began to appreciate its peculiarity and the fact that this is not just ordinary. The first official reports of this mystery was around March, 2013 when people of Kalachi, a town in northeastern Kazakhstan, cried out to the government over the mysterious sleeping illness which nobody seemed to know what was responsible for it.

_{[Source: pixabay commons. CC0 licensed]}

Imagine walking along the road and suddenly you begin to feel dizzy, followed by staggered stride patterns and seeing in double vision, and before one could say, "hey, xup's happening?", you have already fallen into a deep sleep that could last for days. Imagine holding a microphone and delivering a thought provoking speech before an audience of prominent people and all of a sudden you fall into a deep sleep that could stretch for up to seven good days.

One can be anywhere — farm, market, church, mosque, driving, bathroom, etc, just anywhere and fall into a deep embarrassing sleep without any reason. And for the duration of the mysterious sleep, other than fuzzy consciousness to eat and perhaps use the rest room, the victims were nearly comatose. And on waking up eventually, the victims were found not be aware that such an incident had taken place.

“The sick person appears to be conscious and can even walk. But all the same he then falls into a deep sleep and snores, and when they wake him up … the person remembers absolutely nothing,” the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda reported after a 2014 investigation.

One Lyubov Belkova was the first person to be afflicted by this strange illness and that was in April, 2010. Ms Belkova was working at market when she was suddenly struck by an intense drowsiness which later overwhelmed her as she fell into a deep sleep. She remained asleep for four days and later woke up in a hospital where she was told she was struck by a stroke. Afterwards, there were several reports of other victims struck by the same mysterious sleeping sickness. At one time, 5 women were reported to have fallen asleep almost at the same time.

_{[Source: pixabay commons. CC0 licensed]}

And the puzzling sleep affliction did not spare animals. Marquis the cat, was reported to have been affected by foolishness before falling into a deep sleep and started snoring like humans. A child victim who goes by the name Misha Plyukhin suffered hallucinations before falling asleep. There were many symptoms experienced by the victims prior to fallen asleep.

The inexplicable sleeping sickness was also reported in Krasnogorsk, a neighboring town to Kalachi. Krasnogorsk, now almost a ghost town, used to be a home to miners who were working in a nearby Uranium mines, which had since been abandoned after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s.

For 3 years, there were reports of more than 140 incidents yet residents of both Kalachi and Krasnogorsk could not fathom the cause of this problem that is gradually becoming an epidemic. Could this be as a result of alcohol or drug overdose? With time, locals began to develop their own conspiracy theories including alien viruses and government experimentation [1].

_{[Source: Pixabay commons. CC0 licensed]}

Government intervenes

As more and more people began to talk about it and with assistance of the mass media, the development got the attention of the government who promptly constituted a committee and tasked it to get to the root of causes of the inexplicable epidemic. At first, they thought it to be counterfeit vodka, though without certainty. Thereafter, there was suspicion for a case of mass hysteria which was respondible for the dancing plague of 1518, the laughing epidemic of 1962, and the Bin Ladin itch of 2002 [2]. And then under the prevailing wonderment, they remembered the deserted uranium mines [2].

This led to the measurement of radiation levels in well over 7000 houses. But the result of radiation measurement exercise showed a negligible concentration of radioactive substances. Again, experts were of the opinion that symptoms being exhibited by the people aren't suggestive of afflictions by emissions of radioactive substances, noting that illnesses resulting from radioactive substances' afflictions are mainly cancer and organ damage, and never cause people to suddenly fall asleep and become unconscious.

A report in the Siberian Times says scientists have conducted more than 7000 experiments on soil, water, air, patients’ blood, hair, nails have been unable to determine the cause of the affliction. _Source

_{[Source: Pixabay commons. CCO licensed]}

...and medical science demystified the mystery eventually...

It was not until after the mysterious sleep had tormented the inhabitants of Kalachi and Krasnogorsk for 5 good years that medical scientists were able to identify the real culprit. Of course, many residents had already left home before the discovery was eventually made. Who would have stayed? Would you have stayed if such mystery was happening in your town? I guess no.

And it turned out it did have everything to do with the mines – just not the radiation levels, as originally thought. Instead, the sleeping sickness was the result of excessive levels of carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons in the air caused by the uranium mines. The gas carbon monoxide binds to the blood more effectively than oxygen – 200 times more effectively than oxygen, to be precise – which means that when levels get too high, it can starve the brain of oxygen (asphyxiation). This can trigger the brain to shut down, hence the uncontrollable feeling of fatigue. _Source

According to Guardian, Kazakhstan's deputy Prime Minister announced in the summer of 2015 that:

“The uranium mines were closed at some point, and at times a concentration of carbon monoxide occurs there...The oxygen in the air is reduced accordingly, which is the real reason for the sleeping sickness in these villages.”

Molecular mechanism of the carbon monoxide poisoning

Under normal circumstances, oxygen is transported from the lungs to cells in red blood cells where oxygen atoms bond with an iron atom to form an unstable protein complex known as oxyhaemoglobin.

Hb(aq) + 4O2(g) ----> Hb(O2)4(aq)

_{[Oxygen interaction with haemoglobin. Source: Wikipedia commons. Author: OpenStax College. CC BY 3.0 licensed]}

The resulting oxyhaemoglobin being very unstable decomposes to release oxygen and haemoglobin. And thus making oxygen available for metabolic reactions in which the body generates energy.

However, in the presence of carbon monoxide which has been proven to have a strong tendency to replace oxygen when present in more than a certain concentration threshold, then the formation of normal oxyhaemoglobin is disrupted or prevented. Instead, carbon monoxide bonds with iron to form a more stable complex known as carbonmonoxyhaemoglobin.

Hb(aq) + 4CO(g) ----> Hb(O)4(aq)

Carbonmonoxyhemoglobin being a more stable compound than oxyhaemoglobin, has a much less tendency to decompose to free oxygen for metabolic processes. Instead, it continues to circulate in the bloodstream in this bonded complex form, making it impossible for cells to obtain the oxygen they need for metabolism. Under this condition, body's energy production dramatically decreases and the person begins to feel
dizzy [3].

_{[Carbon monoxide interaction with haemoglobin. Source: Wikimedia commons. Author: OpenStax College. CC BY 3.0 licensed]}

If this situation is not reversed within the shortest possible time, oxygen circulation to the brain is hampered, making the person to begin to feel dizzy, nausea, headaches, weak and eventually unconscious, which was the case with the inhabitants of Karachi and Krasnogorsk. This has the capacity of causing death in extreme cases.

Conclusion

Even though scientists were able to provide logical answers to this strange occurrence, there are still much to worry about. Because, carbon monoxide is one of the products of combustion and the mines hadn't being active for more than two decades. So the question remains "why were the residents still being tormented by the strange sickness two decades after?" This question lingered until 2016 when scientists working at the National Nuclear Centre of Kazakhstan confirmed that indeed carbon monoxide was responsible for the mysterious sleep. At any rate, a good number of residents had been evacuated by the government. Thanks for reading.

References for further reading

• _{[1] Residents of Kalachi keep falling asleep and no one knows why}
• _{[2] The Science behind the mysterious town where residents fell asleep for days at a time}
• _{[3] Carbon monoxide — Physiological effects}
• _{Carbon monoxide poisoning: effect on haemoglobin-oxygen equilibrium}
• _{Mystery of Kazakhstan sleeping sickness solved, says government}

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