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The doctor is taking care of a patient with botulinum poisoning. |
Previously, on May 15, the male patient was taken to Gia Dinh People's Hospital with signs of serious botulinum poisoning.
The patient’s health has become severer with paralyzed muscles, ventilator and antibiotic treatment requirements so the patient was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) to continue the treatment.
Despite the doctor's efforts in the treatment process, multi-organ failure occurred in the patient in advance of cardiac arrest.
At the time of the patient's death, the Botulism Antitoxin Heptavalent (BAT) antidote urgently provided by World Health Organization (WHO) arrived in Ho Chi Minh City to treat the patient. However, doctors said that the patient did not have enough time for using this antidote.
As of this morning, Doctor Le Quoc Hung, Head of the Department of Tropical Diseases under Cho Ray Hospital said that the hospital was distributed vials of botulism antitoxin to save two patients aged 18 and 26 under treatment. However, they were not injected with the antidotes because the patients' health condition is getting worse with complete muscle paralysis, ventilator requirement and intensive treatment.
Last night, six vials of the rare BAT medicine were sent from the WHO warehouse in Switzerland to Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City, and then they were transported to Gia Dinh People's Hospital for treatment.
Right after receiving the antidote from WHO, the Ministry of Health promptly distributed two vials to Cho Ray Hospital, one vial to Gia Dinh People's Hospital and three vials to Children's Hospital No.2.
As reported by Sai Gon Giai Phong (SGGP) Newspaper, Ho Chi Minh City received six botulinum poisoning cases due to eating steamed pork rolls with unknown origin from street vendors and fermented foods.
Three of the six patients were using antidotes and their health conditions have been improved while the other three must be under ventilator treatment requirement because the hospitals ran out of antidotes.
