Turkish men hospitalized after drinking camel’s milk, urine

The men believed the camel’s milk and urine to be good for health, claiming it was written in a hadith. daily Hürriyet 

Two Turkish men were hospitalized on arrival to Turkey after drinking camel’s milk and urine while on an umrah visit, daily Hürriyet reported. The men believed the camel’s milk and urine to be good for health, claiming it was written in a hadith. An imam, according to the Turkish men, also drank the milk and urine with them. The visitors were hospitalized due to high fever and unusual levels of liver enzymes. Further tests revealed that the two men had been infected with the “alkhurma” virus, reportedly catching the virus from the milk. The alkhurma virus is very dangerous and highly contagious and has a fatality rate of 25 to 35 percent, daily Hürriyet reported. İhsan Özkes, a retired religious cleric and current member of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), denied the existence of any hadith that would encourage people to drink camel’s milk and urine. “Those who did drink it must have been ignorant,” he said. The Muslim Brotherhood had fielded a backup candidate, the head of their Freedom and Justice Party, Mohammed Mursi, in anticipation of Shater’s disqualification. He could clinch some of the Islamist vote, but his perceived lack of charisma may block the chances of a surge. The registration process for the May 23-24 election has been drama-filled with a roller coaster of legal challenges and appeals to candidacies, and analysts say the next phase could yield even more surprises. “The electoral map is still not that clear,” said Tewfik Aclimandos, political analyst at the Paris I University. “Much depends on the instructions of the Salafists,” who control 20 percent of parliament, after their candidate, Abu Ismail, was barred from the election, said Aclimandos. “The question is whether the Abu Ismail supporters will sow chaos” or support another candidate, he said. Abu Ismail supporters have stage a sit-in outside the electoral commission’s headquarters in a Cairo suburb in protest over his disqualification.