Clotting disorder killed Arafat
2004-11-17 14:49
Paris - Doctors who treated Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat believe he died of a blood condition called disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) and have ruled out poisoning, Le Monde newspaper reported on Wednesday.
"(DIC) is the complete disruption of the mechanisms which normally assure proper blood clotting ... It can lead to major internal bleeding and possible death," the paper said.
French medical secrecy laws mean that the report on Arafat's death has been communicated only to his immediate family, resulting in a spate of rumours in the Arab world that he may have been poisoned.
An online medical dictionary describes DIC as a condition under which "blood clotting mechanisms are activated throughout the body instead of being localised to an area of injury.
"Small blood clots form throughout the body, and eventually the blood clotting factors are used up and not available to form clots at sites of real tissue injury."
Quoting "very good sources," Le Monde said it was internal lesions associated with DIC which led to the sudden deterioration of Arafat's condition four days after his arrival at a Paris military hospital on October 29. On November 3 he fell into a coma from which he never surfaced.
Le Monde quoted doctors as saying that DIC is a condition rather than an actual disease, and can be set off in a person of Arafat's age - 75 - by either an infection or a cancer. However they had found no indication of either.
Only strong poison would have killed so quickly
"We also worked on the question of poisoning, using sophisticated techniques, before concluding with a negative," it quoted a doctor as saying.
Meanwhile, the Spanish daily El Pais published an interview with Arafat's personal doctor Ashraf el-Kurdi who said that though he did not believe his patient was poisoned, he had considered the possibility.
"All the other pathologies that could have set off Yasser Arafat's symptoms were discounted one after the other," el-Kurdi - a former Jordanian health minister - said.
"If it was a poison then it must have been strong to kill so quickly. I still don't believe it was that."
The French government spokesperson Jean-Francois Cope said that if there had been any suspicion of poisoning, doctors treating Arafat would not have released his body.
"Mr Arafat received the best possible care and all the tests that had to be taken were taken. If the doctors had had any doubt they would have had recourse to the justice system. But I note that the authorisation to dispose of the body was duly issued," he said.