CHINA / National

Five fake drugs found after one kills 5
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-05-19 20:11

Five drugs made by a Chinese pharmaceutical company have been proved fake, including an injection fluid that killed five people in a month, Friday's Beijing News reported.


A patient receives treatment in a local hospital in Guangzhou, capital city of south's China Guangdong province May 15, 2006. The patient shows symptoms of acute renal failure and has been found to have taken a fake injection produced by a chemical works in Qiqihar, northeast China's Heilongjiang Provinc. The concerfeit medicine have led to five deaths. [Xinhua]

Five people died and six others were hospitalized after they received a drug called Armillarisni A for gallbladder inflammation that contained the chemical, diglycol, that can cause kidney failure, said China's State Food and Drug Administration on Friday.

The counterfeit ingredient was also found in another four drugs produced by Qiqihar No. 2 Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. in China's northeastern Heilongjiang province.

The company has been shut down and its products banned while police has detained a drug dealer named Wang Guiping who sold diglycol to the company.

In Beijing, the government has sealed up over 6,000 boxes of eight drugs from the company though it has received no reports of negative reactions.