Over 90 poisoned by bear meat in Siberia

Ninety-one people have been poisoned after eating bear meat in the southern Siberian region of Irkutsk, local healthcare authorities told ITAR-TASS news agency on Thursday.

Sick people who who had eaten the meat began to seek medical aid on Sunday, a health official said, adding that the disease had been diagnosed as trichinellosis.

Five people were badly affected, she said.

The rest were in a satisfactory condition.

The bear was killed in November, but the hunter failed to have the meat tested and smoked it at home, the agency said.

The authorities confiscated and destroyed 85 kgs of poisoned meat.

In all, 142 people ate the poisoned meat, the agency added .

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.