US helps Cuba

A US Nobel Medicine Prize winner and virus expert, Carleton Gajdusek, flew into Cuba to join an international team of specialists helping Cuban doctors track down the cause of an epidemic nervous disease, Reuter reports from Havana.

The arrival of the US doctors, is thought to reflect concern among US authorities that the disease could spread to the United States, 90 miles away. Cuban experts are puzzled about the origin of the disease, which has affected more than 25,000 people. Cuba has appealed for international help to pinpoint the cause of the illness.