The husband of a Californian woman who died of an illness with symptoms similar to New Zealand tourist Sarah Carter in Thailand is calling for an investigation into his wife's death.
Tourist guide Soraya Vorster Pandola, 33, died in Chiang Mai, Thailand - where she worked for a US-based travel company - on January 11.
Ms Carter, 23, fell violently ill on February 3 while staying at the Downtown Inn in Chiang Mai and died a day later, and her two New Zealand travelling companions, Emma Langlands and Amanda Eliason, also fell ill but later recovered.
Traces of the pest control chemical chlorpyrifos was found in the bedroom where the group were staying, despite the room being intensely cleaned before to the swabs being taken. An elderly British couple, and a Canadian man died after staying at the same hotel or using its facilities, while two other women died in similar circumstances within one month.
Tony Pandola, husband of the American victim, said today that Soraya was not staying at the Downtown Inn, but across town in a small guest house.
"Soraya's case was quite unique because it was the same symptoms as the others, but in a different hotel," he told TV station KGO in Berkeley, California.
He questioned both the theory that the travellers died from exposure to chlorpyrifos, and the assertion by Thai authorities that all seven deaths were a coincidence.
"We all want explanations, including Sarah's family, my family and of all the other victims, but I imagine we might have to come to terms with the fact that we're not going to ever know for sure what this was," Mr Pandola said.
His wife was fit and healthy, and had just finished leading a six-day bike tour through Thailand for Backroads, a US-based outdoor tour company, when she suddenly fell ill.
"Details started coming out that she was in a coma, that her kidneys had failed, that her heart was inflamed, that her lungs had failed, she was on a ventilator," said Mr Pandola.
Now, nearly four months later, her death is still a mystery and Mr Pandola said he had asked the US Centres for Disease Control, and the World Health Organisation to look into his wife's death.
