BUCHAREST, Feb 8, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Five Romanian soldiers who served as peacekeepers in Bosnia are undergoing medical tests to determine if their illnesses are linked to tours of duty in the Balkans, Romania's defense ministry said Wednesday.

The five have been hospitalized while they undergo intensive tests and are said to be suffering from physical changes brought on by disease, detected after their peacekeeping mission in the Balkans, said hospital sources.

Medics refused to provide further details on the soldiers' conditions, but said the five would be subject to more physical examinations in the coming week.

Some 1,500 Romanian troops will be affected by a screening program that the Romanian authorities initiated in January amid the furor over a possible link between a spate of cancers in former peacekeepers and the use of depleted uranium munitions by NATO troops in the region.

Around the same time, Romanian authorities announced that a junior officer who had claimed he was suffering from so-called Balkan-war syndrome was in fact healthy.

The army also ruled out the possibility of a causal link between an illness that the soldier had earlier suffered and his service in Bosnia.

Romania, which hopes to join NATO soon, is already a member of the Partnership for Peace program -- seen as a preliminary stage for former eastern bloc countries before they accede to full membership.

It was under the terms of its membership of the Partnership that it sent peacekeepers to Bosnia.

No conclusive scientific evidence has yet established a causal link between armor-piercing uranium rounds and illnesses -- including some cancers -- reported among former peacekeeping troops. ((c) 2001 Agence France Presse)