This story is from June 15, 2019

Deadly high gets cure from dry state

Spurious country liquor, commonly known as hooch, kills hundreds annually in India. Ethyl alcohol was hitherto the only remedy for hooch poisoning. Now, Gujarat-based pharmaceutical major Zydus Cadila has launched the fomepizole injection to treat the condition. The company, which operates from Ahmedabad, will make these injections available free of cost as hooch tragedy generally strikes people from the lower socio-economic stratum.
Deadly high gets cure from dry state
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AHMEDABAD: Spurious country liquor, commonly known as hooch, kills hundreds annually in India. Ethyl alcohol was hitherto the only remedy for hooch poisoning. Now, Gujarat-based pharmaceutical major Zydus Cadila has launched the fomepizole injection to treat the condition. The company, which operates from Ahmedabad, will make these injections available free of cost as hooch tragedy generally strikes people from the lower socio-economic stratum.
Zydus Cadila will manufacture more than 3,000 vials of fomepizole injections and offer them through its select depots in Delhi, Bengaluru, and Ahmedabad.

Pankaj Patel, the chairman of Zydus Cadila, said that the company endeavours to provide therapies that address unmet needs with the focus on accessibility and affordability. “This therapy will contribute to public health and help save lives,” Patel said.
Incidents of poisoning by spurious alcohol are becoming increasingly common across India. According to Union government data, 2,927 people died after drinking spurious alcohol in the country from 2012 to 2014. In Ahmedabad, 149 people lost their lives in the 2009 hooch tragedy alone. That prompted the state government to introduce the murder charge in the Gujarat Prohibition Act.
“So far, ethyl alcohol has been the only antidote available for methyl alcohol poisoning,” said Dr Nilay Thakor, senior physician who heads the medicine department at MK Shah Medical College. “After the 1978 hooch tragedy in Ahmedabad, we made a licensed liquor shop in a hotel give us whiskey bottles to treat the victims,” Thakor said. After the 2009 tragedy, doctors used 100% ethyl alcohol injections to save patients, Thakor said.

The consumption of spurious liquor can cause permanent blindness, kidney failure, liver damage, and acidosis or the building up of acid in the blood stream which makes blood pressure plummet and eventually spurs multi-organ failure.
Dr Ravindra Mittal, medical advisor and head, regulatory affairs, Cadila Healthcare Limited, said: “Certain enzymes in the human body react with methanol and produce toxic substances known as metabolites.” Mittal said these metabolites trigger serious complications.
“Fomepizole inhibits the production of metabolites,” Mittal said. “Thus, it helps eliminate the root cause of the problem. Depending on the extent of consumption of spurious liquor, it may be used simultaneously with other forms of treatment.”
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