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Tripoli, 26 March 2013:
The death-toll in Tripoli’s alcohol poisoning crisis has now reached 101.
It is known that 1,066 people have been . . .[restrict]affected by drinking a methanol-laced alcoholic drink, with 15 percent of these losing their sight, according to the latest figures released by the Ministry of Health.
The crisis, the largest the country has seen, started on 10 March, when the first Tripoli residents were admitted to hospital after drinking home-made alcohol, known locally as bokha. This appears to have been contaminated by a deadly quantity of methanol.
Tripoli’s limited number of dialysis centres means the country has been ill-equipped to deal with the scale of the crisis. Tripoli Medical Centre and Tripoli Central Hospital treated numerous cases, while others were transferred to dialysis centres outside the capital. Many deaths apparently occurred in patients waiting for dialysis machines to become free, for their damaged livers to be treated.
International humanitarian NGO Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has provided technical assistance to the Ministry of Health during the crisis. It brought toxicology experts from Norway into Libya, along with supplies of the drug fomepizole. This ‘antidote’ blocks the toxin formic acid, which is produced by methanol poisoning, for twelve hours, buying essential time until dialysis machines are available.
During the crisis, a number of patients were transferred to Tunisia for treatment, although some 13 of these reportedly died on the way to hospitals in the neighbouring country. [/restrict]
