Sindrom Havana itu apa sih?

Sindrom Havana adalah sekumpulan gejala medis dengan penyebab yang tidak diketahui yang sebagian besar dialami di luar negeri oleh pejabat pemerintah dan personel militer Amerika Serikat. Gejalanya berkisar mulai dari telinga yang sakit dan berdenging hingga kesulitan kognitif. Sindrom ini pertama kali dilaporkan pada tahun 2016 oleh staf kedutaan Amerika Serikat dan Kanada di Havana, Kuba.

Kementerian Luar Negeri Amerika Serikat menyebut sindrom ini adalah insiden kesehatan yang tidak dapat dijelaskan, sementara Direktur Badan Intelijen Pusat William J. Burns secara terbuka menyebut sindrom ini adalah serangan. A 2019 retrospective neuroimaging study of 40 affected diplomats in Cuba published in the medical journal JAMA found evidence that the diplomats had significant brain neuroimaging differences compared to healthy control group members, but it was not able to determine the cause of the observed differences and states that "the clinical importance of these differences is uncertain and may require further study". While there is no expert consensus on the syndrome's cause, an expert committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine concluded in December 2020 that microwave energy (specifically, directed pulsed RF energy) "appears to be the most plausible mechanism in explaining these cases among those that the committee considered" but that "each possible cause remains speculative". Other potential causes or contributing factors of the symptoms that have been proposed have included ultrasound, pesticides, or mass psychogenic illness.

The U.S. intelligence services have not reached a consensus on or a formal determination of the cause of the Havana syndrome, though U.S. intelligence and government officials have expressed suspicions to the press that Russian military intelligence is responsible.