American intelligence considers it "
very unlikely
" that a foreign power or a weapon is at the origin of the mysterious "Havana syndrome", this unexplained disorder which has affected dozens of American diplomats or employees of embassies, reveals Wednesday the Washington Post.
According to the newspaper, seven government agencies have reviewed approximately 1,000 cases of "abnormal health incidents
" over the past few years
and five of them concluded that it was "
very unlikely
" that the disturbances were caused by a deliberate attack.
Still unexplained
One of the agencies deems this hypothesis as "
improbable
" only, while another refrains from concluding, adds the Post, which quotes unidentified intelligence officials.
This conclusion seems to go against an expert report published a year ago according to which electromagnetic waves could have been in some cases the origin of the mysterious syndrome, thus supporting the thesis of deliberate attacks.
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These health problems (migraines, dizziness, nausea, visual disturbances, etc.) first struck American and Canadian diplomats posted in Cuba in 2016, hence its name "Havana syndrome
"
.
These “
abnormal health incidents
”, according to the terminology used in the United States, were then reported elsewhere in the world (China, Germany, Australia, Russia, Austria) and even in Washington.
Havana syndrome remains unexplained to this day by scientists, who have multiplied the hypotheses.
In August 2021, US Vice President Kamala Harris' visit to Hanoi was delayed three hours after such an alert in the Vietnamese capital.
