Argentina, since May, has been facing a fentanile-related health crisis, and this Thursday (14), the country has reached the mark of 96 dead by the contaminated medicine-a substance that may be 100 times more powerful than morphine.
The new deaths occurred in confirmed cases in hospitals in Formosa, the northernmost province of Argentina, Córdoba, 700km from Buenos Aires and Santa Fe, in the country’s center-east.
In patients victims of the contaminated substance, bacteria strains were found Klebsiella pneumoniae e Ralstonia picketiisome resistant to multiple antibiotics. For investigators, the source was Fentanil, traced to the HLB Pharma pharmacist and the Ramallo laboratory, where the company manufactures medicines.
According to federal judge Ernesto Kreplak, tests performed by Anmat, the country’s regulatory agency confirmed bacterial infections in patients and ampoules of two lots of fentanil prepared by HLB Pharma – one of which had been “widely distributed”.
To the newspaper The nation, Pharmaceutical owner Ariel García Furfaro denied that the deaths could be directly attributed to HLB Pharma products. He reiterated that the company withdrew the drug from circulation and claimed that if the ampoules were compromised, someone would have “planted” the bacteria.
Authorities claim that the contaminated substance may have affected more than 300,000 ampoules distributed by the province and city of Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Cordoba, Formosa.
“Argentina has never experienced such a serious affair. It’s unprecedented,” says Adriana Francese, lawyer of four relatives of the victims.
Alejandro Ayala told the AFP news agency last week that Fentanil caused the death of his 32 -year -old brother Leonel, “in a few days.”
18 -year -old Renato Nicolini’s mother hospitalized after a car accident and died due to a bacterial infection caused by the substance told EFE news agency that “he started to improve gradually and, on the third day, found that he had pneumonia. His fever could not be controlled and seven days later he died.”
Even after the collection of part of the lots, the number of deaths continues to increase. Researchers are increasingly analyzing cases of patients who have died in the last months after receiving the drug.
HLB Pharma, so far, is not the subject of processes. However, Judge Kreplak appointed 24 people involved in the manufacture and sale of the substance as suspicions – freezing their assets and forbidding them from leaving Argentina.
Lawyer Francese detailed that so far, the investigation is analyzing how the contaminated lots have been manufactured, just as quality controls have been implemented. “This will be very important to determine those responsible,” he said.
