BRIEFS. health

110,000 people possibly affected by bad medicine

la prensa

pending: Forensic experts have yet to report results on the testing of 100,000 bottles of allegedly contaminated drugs received by the Ministerio Público. 987327

According to a document from the Caja de Seguro Social (CSS), more than 100,000 people might have been affected by medicine contaminated with diethylene glycol in 2006.

Special prosecutor Dimas Guevara, who is in charge of this case, reported yesterday that the official document was sent to his office last week and must be now compared with other evidence so as to determine the correct number of people who might have possibly ingested the toxic substance that was included in cough syrup and other medicine distributed by the government.

Guevara explained that not everybody who ingested the contaminated medicine was affected by it.

Guevara said he is still awaiting the final report on the 100,000 bottles of medicine that were confiscated by the Ministerio Público in order to be tested for diethylene glycol.

The special prosecutor recognized that the investigation has proceeded slowly, but asked that people be patient.