BERIBERI IN A WELL-NOURISHED AMAZONIAN POPULATION

Beriberi is an endemic disease among the Naporuna indigenous people of Ecuadorean Amazonia (annual morbidity rate of 1.5%). A total of 47 pa tients with dry beriberi were seen at the Franklin Tello Hospital, Nap e, during 1995-1996; a similar incidence was observed in previous year s. No wet beriberi was found. Although the diagnosis of the disease wa s made clinically, an effective and quick response to thiamine treatme nt excluded other differential diagnoses, such as tropical ataxic neur opathy. Although indigenous people have several possible dietetic risk factors, none of them adequately explain the disease's high incidence . Some suggestions are made for the high incidence of beriberi among t his Amazonian people but its cause remains unknown. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.