Society

Sisters poisoned; foul play suspected

By Huang Zhiling and Zhang Ao (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-01-14 08:11

A photo montage shows Guo Lijuan resting in the intensive care unit in the No 4 West China Hospital affiliated with Sichuan University on Jan 11. Her medical reports show thallium in her urine reaches 4.28 mg per liter. [Liu Chenping/Asianewsphoto]

CHENGDU: Guo Lijuan, a nurse in the No 4 West China Hospital in Sichuan province, never imagined one day she would send her own sister into the intensive care unit of her hospital and watch her pass away.

The 24-year-old is now a patient herself in her hospital in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan, sad over the death of her sister, Guo Xiaoqin. She is suffering from the same symptoms of thallium poisoning as her sister.

Guo Xiaoqin, 20, who passed away on Jan 8, was a student in Dujiangyan Business School in Chengdu. On Dec 14, she began to suffer pains around the navel, lose a lot of hair and have hallucinations. She died before medics could diagnose her disease.

"She should have graduated this summer," Guo Lijuan said. "She would have been the best accountant in the world."

Guo Lijuan felt ill before her sister died. She thought it was because she was sad and did not take it seriously.

However, at her sister's funeral, she got a call from her sister's doctor saying she might have the same disease. Medics had checked the hair and urine of the two sisters and found their thallium level was 1,000 times higher than normal.

Since her younger sister's death, Guo Lijuan has lost more than 8 kg and weighs only 36 kg. With a face as pale as a white piece of paper, she repeatedly called the name of her sister in bed.

"She was crying all the time, and refusing to eat. We take turns staying with her and we hope to lessen her pain a little," said a fellow nurse who tried to remind Guo of something interesting to distract her a little.

The sisters' high thallium level is still unexplained.

"Such a huge amount of thallium isn't likely to have been taken through daily diet," Zhu Qishang, chief of internal medicine department of the No 4 West China Hospital, told China Daily.

"Fortunately, her symptoms were discovered much earlier than her younger sister, and we have a good chance to cure her," Zhu said.

Zhu said more than 10 patients poisoned with thallium had been cured in her hospital. Thallium is a partially soluble soft metal that is highly toxic and is used in rat poisons and insecticides. It can easily be absorbed through the skin, lungs and digestive organs, causing serious damage to the stomach and nervous system, and in some cases leading to paralysis and even death.

"It is not easy for common people to find this metal," Zhu said.

Guo Lijuan said the only thing she can think of that she and her sister shared was a bowl of instant noodles about two weeks before her sister became ill.

"We doubt someone deliberately put it in their food," said her uncle, Guo Jianhua, 43.

The family has reported the case to the police.

"I hope we could find the poisoner as early as possible. But it can never bring my sister back to life," Guo said while sobbing.

A string of deliberate thallium poisoning cases has happened in the country since its first reported case in 1994. The first case remains unsolved.

The victim, Zhu Ling, who was a chemistry major at Tsinghua University, fell ill in December 1994. Her condition soon became serious, but by the time doctors discovered Zhu had been poisoned with thallium, her central nervous system had already been badly damaged.