Directorate of drug administration steps in
Most of the 18 patients who suffered unusual drug reactions at Rajshahi Medical College Hospital on Saturday, were released yesterday as their conditions improved.
Meanwhile, the Directorate General of Drug Administration has been called in to scientifically investigate into the incidents of drug reaction.
The DGDA officials visited RMCH yesterday and collected samples of five drugs that reacted abnormally.
Among the drugs, two injections -- Hyoscine Butylbromide and Ranitidine -- were prepared and provided to the hospital by state-owned Essential Drugs Company Limited (EDCL), according to DGDA and RMCH officials.
Two others -- Ceftriaxone and Ciprofloxacin lactate infusion -- were prepared by Popular Pharmaceuticals Limited for EDCL and provided to the hospital by EDCL. Flucloxacillin was prepared by Opsonin Pharma Ltd and RMCH authority procured it.
Talking to The Daily Star, Prof Abul Kalam Azad, Director General of Health Services said DGDA was called in to investigate as it has well-equipped laboratory facilities in Dhaka to test the drugs properly.
“Their (DGDA) local officials were asked to send the samples by today [yesterday],” he said.
DGDA would identify the drugs that were administered to the affected patients before they reacted badly, and test those drugs for identifying the responsible element for the reactions, Prof Azad said, adding that the hospital authority was asked to stop using the identified drugs until the drug analysis report is available.
When contacted, Mirza Md Anwarul Bashed, assistant director of DGDA in Rajshahi said he visited the hospital, talked to the hospital’s investigation team, identified the drugs, and collected samples.
“We have sent the samples to Dhaka,” he told this correspondent yesterday evening.
Mirza Bashed said, he talked to RMCH’s investigation committee’s chief, Prof Mohammad Hasan Tarik of medicine department, and collected names and batch numbers of the drugs used on the children.
Then he visited the RMCH store and collected samples of the drugs in accordance with the same batch numbers.
“I saw the drugs were stored in normal temperature as per rules,” he said.
He collected 800 millilitres of each of the drugs and divided each into four groups.
One group of the drugs was kept at the RMCH store, one group was sent to concerned manufacturers, one group would be kept at DGDA office and another group would be sent for laboratory tests.
He said the tests would check whether the declared ingredients of drugs are alright, if there is any component of “harmful pyrogen” that may cause fever, and identify any other element that caused the reactions.
He said he talked to some of the patients who suffered drug reactions and their attendants, and would send their statements to the laboratory authorities.
Some 14 paediatric patients, aged between two and eight, experienced high fever and convulsions following intravenous infusions of some drugs at the hospital on Saturday night.
The next day, the hospital authorities stopped using four drugs -- two antibiotics, an antacid and an antispasmodic -- on the children.
That night, similar drug reactions occurred among four orthopaedic patients, forcing the authorities to stop using the drugs on all patients.
A three-member committee was formed on Sunday, led by medicine department professor Mohammad Hasan Tarik, to investigate into the incident.
The committee was asked to report within three days.
During a visit to the hospital yesterday, this correspondent saw out of 14 children, 11 were released while out of four orthopaedic patients, three were released.
Md Badiuzzman, father of a four-year old boy, said his son was brought to the hospital with swollen face and fever on May 1, and he was improving since being admitted.
On Saturday night when he was given the injections, he started shivering with increased body temperature. “The shivering stopped within hours, but a new phenomenon arose that his urine has become yellowish,” the father said, adding that his son’s health is regressing again.
The DGDA assistant director said he also talked to mothers of two child patients.
They told him that one of the children was given an antibiotic injection while the other was given antacid injection between 10pm and 10:30pm on Saturday night, and minutes after that they began shivering with fever.
The senior doctors treated them, provided some of them with artificial oxygen and they got well in two to three hours, he said.
At the orthopaedic ward, one Abdullah, 20, of Natore’s Doyarampur area was admitted with a broken right hand on May 9 night. He suffered drug reactions on Sunday night after he was given the same antibiotic injections.
“Minutes after the nurse went away administering the injections, it felt like my brain was boiling. My jaws clenched and I began convulsing on the bed. It became difficult for my mother alone to hold me down,” Abdullah said.
Doctors treated him in the next two hours, he said.
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