US warns citizens in China

BEIJING: An American citizen working at the US consulate in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou has reported suffering from "abnormal" sounds and pressure leading to a mild brain injury, the US embassy said on Wednesday.

The embassy, which issued a health alert to Americans living in China, said it could not link the case to health issues suffered by US government staff in Cuba dating back to late 2016. However, later on Wednesday, US

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told lawmakers that the "sonic attack" in China was "medically similar" to the incidents in Cuba. The unnamed American citizen assigned to the consulate in Guangzhou had reported a variety of "physical symptoms" dating from late 2017 to April this year, the US embassy in Beijing said in an email.

The worker was sent to the United States for further evaluation. "The clinical findings of this evaluation matched mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI)," the embassy said. The State Department was taking the incident very seriously and working to determine the cause and impact, the embassy said.

Pompeo said that medical teams were heading to Guangzhou to investigate the incident. The State Department added the Chinese government told the embassy it is also investigating and taking appropriate measures.

"We cannot at this time connect it with what happened in Havana, but we are investigating all possibilities," a US embassy official told Reuters. China’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.