Health officials investigating the deaths of more than 13 women who died after attending government-run family planning camps in eastern India believe that they were killed by medicine contaminated with rat poison, according to theguardian.
All antibiotics bought from Mahawar Pharmaceuticals, a factory in the the eastern city of Raipur, the state capital, have now been withdrawn, the Press Trust of India reported.
Quantities of zinc phosphide, a component of rat poison, was found at the factory, where antibiotics distributed at the two camps on Saturday and Monday were made earlier this week.
"We have seen some toxin reaction in some patients, not infection. Renal failure, falling blood pressure, in all cases issued with this drug. What they were given was not antibiotic but a toxin," said Dr Ashutosh Tiwari, secretary of the local branch of the Indian Medical Association in Bilaspur, where the deaths have occurred.
The results of tests on pills given to women and on the viscera of the casualties are still awaited, for final confirmation of the presence of the poison in the drugs.
Rat poison linked to sterilisation deaths
FE Team | Published: November 16, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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