Madikeri: Spurious antibiotic kills 3

DHNS

• 5 develop complications after penicillin administration in Madikeri

Madikeri, 19 September 2010: Three people died after being administered drugs at a primary health centre (PHC) in Suntikoppa and a government hospital in Kushalnagar, raising serious questions on the state health department’s adherence to safety standards and the quality of medicines distributed in the districts.

 

Five others also developed serious complications after being given medicines, including Penicillin, an antibiotic, but they survived after undergoing treatment at the intensive care unit (ICU) in a local hospital.

 

As news of the deaths and medicine-induced complications spread, a large number of people from Suntikoppa and its surrounding areas gathered in front of the district hospital creating fears of a breach of the peace.

 

But when reports of the death of Saritha, at Kushalnagar, reached the demonstrators, swarms of angry people from Madikeri, Suntikoppa and nearby areas converged on the PHC and the district hospital and demanded that the authorities immediately pay up compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the kin of those who died.

 

The situation was brought under control after Deputy Commissioner K H Ashwathanarayana Gowda, Zilla Parishad President V M Vijaya, ZP chief executive office A B Ibrahim and Superintendent of Police Manjunath Annigeri visited the spot.
Sensing the tense situation, they contacted MLA M P Appacchu Ranjan, who was away in Bangalore.

 

After Ranjan contacted Health Department Secretary Dr Ramana Reddy and apprised him of the situation, a decision was taken to provide Rs 1 lakh as compensation to the relatives of the three who died — Mohideen (60), a resident of Pumphouse in Suntikoppa, Susheela (65), from Balekadu in Suntikoppa, and Saritha (35) of Kushalnagar.

 

The protesters withdrew their agitation after the compensation was announced. When some people objected to a local doctor conducting autopsy, K V G Medical College (Sullia) Forensics Department head Dr K B Sooryakumar was called to conduct the post-mortem.

 

Traffic was disrupted on the Mysore-Madikeri road between 11:30 am and 1:30 pm while vehicular movement at Kushalnagar stopped till 5:30 pm because of the agitation.

 

The state government did not deem it fit to order an investigation, with Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa only expressing grief over the deaths and concern for those who developed complications.

 

A statement issued by the chief minister’s office claimed that the deaths and the illnesses occurred because the persons developed allergy after they were administered paracemtamol injections.

 

It is said that Dr Tharananda, who joined duty recently at the Suntikoppa PHC, administered Paracetamol and Penicillin injections to seven persons who were suffering from headache and fever. Mohideen and Susheela collapsed as soon as they left the PHC. Minutes later, five others also collapsed.

 

Mohideen died on his way to the Madikeri district hospital and Susheela failed to respond to treatment. Five others were admitted to the ICU under critical condition, but survived after they were provided immediate medical attention. They have been identified as Harish (40) of Kanebail, Umar (48) of Suntikoppa, Aisamma (65) and Sandeep (27) of Gaddehalla Pumphouse, and Nabeesa (55) of Kodagarahalli.

 

Reacting to the incident, district surgeon Dr Ajith Kumar said that the deaths were in the category of “rarest of rare”, adding that the cause of death would be known only after chemical analysis of the drugs samples of which would be sent to the Drug Controller in Bangaler for examination.