A total of 100 people have died from taking medicines
contaminated with diethylene glycol since the first documented
poisonings were reported last October, Panama's Ministry of Health
said on Saturday.
The investigation into the deaths of another 203 people is still
under way to make clear if diethylene glycol poisoning is behind
the deaths, prosecutors said.
The poisonings first surfaced in the summer of 2006 as many
people died mysteriously with symptoms such as kidney damages and
physical paralysis.
Investigators confirmed in October that the people had died of
diethylene glycol poisoning.
Panama's Medicom company allegedly sold tainted ingredients to a
pharmaceutical factory, which used them to produce medicines.
Panama could become the country with the most deaths caused by
diethylene glycol poisoning, authorities said.
A total of 200 people died in Bangladesh earlier in the 1990s
and 105 people died in 1937 in the United States from diethylene
glycol poisoning.
(Xinhua News Agency April 29, 2007)
