Tourettes-like epidemic strikes 21 people

A Tourettes-like epidemic has afflicted 21 people in the US and has been compared to the Dancing Plague of 1518.

A Tourettes-like epidemic has afflicted 21 people in the US.

The unusual occurrence - which has most affected teenage girls from a high school in New York - has been bizarrely compared to the Dancing Plague which affected 400 people in France nearly 500 years ago.

But Dr Laszlo L Mechtler - who is treating some of the girls - think they have conversion disorder, meaning they could be chanelling their stress levels through a number of involuntary tics.

He told the New York Post: ''These girls have gone to the media and said they have no stress. These girls would be in denial. They have had significant emotional and psychological issues above and beyond what teenage girls are normally subject to.''