A Chinese court on Thursday ordered a drugmaker to pay 55,589 yuan (7,500 U.S. dollars) in compensation to a woman who choked to death after taking a large pill produced by the company, the first such case in China.

Yangwenshui Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., which is based in Shanxi Province, was ordered to pay the compensation, about 7,500 U.S. dollars, to the family of Li Qiuhua, who suffocated while swallowing a large pill as part of treatment for a gynaecological disorder on January 5.

Li, 34, a citizen of Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, was immediately rushed to a local hospital but died early next morning after medical treatment failed.

Li's husband claimed that the drugmaker failed to provide necessary warning information in the instruction about the risk of taking the medicine.

However, the company blamed the accident on Li, and said she should have been fully aware of how to take the medicine in a safe way.

In defence, the drugmaker said that the pill, which is 1.6 cm in diameter, was made in accordance with the state standard and instructions were printed in line with relative laws and regulations and was approved by state pharmaceutical authority.

After more than ten months of investigation and court hearings, the Wenjiang District People's Court ordered that the drugmaker should share 20 percent of the responsibility for the accident and thus should pay the amount of money to the victim.

Both the plaintiff and the defendant were not satisfied by the verdict and expressed their willingness to appeal to a high court.

(Xinhua News Agency, December 7, 2007)