Tainted brew kills 22
Police have been conducting raids on bars and stores in search of tainted alcohol that has killed 22 people and left more than 100 seriously ill in hospital. The tainted alcohol is believed to have been mixed with methanol, which, if ingested, can cause blindness and organ failure. The first cases of alcohol poisoning emerged at the beginning of last week in Leon, 90km northwest of the capital Managua. A lack of medicine has led to staff handing out shots of high quality rum – the ethanol content of the rum can help counteract the effects of methanol poisoning. Officials at the Nicaraguan Health Ministry are conducting tests on thousands of litres of the illegally distilled sugar cane alcohol to determine which ones are contaminated with methanol. A similar outbreak of methanol poisoning in El Salvador in 2000 left at least 120 people dead.
