A 5 -year -old boy died and another of 11 was hospitalized in Santiago de Cuba After consuming an expired medication.
The unfortunate event occurred on Tuesday in the Santiago town of the Maya, where the minor who died was attended in the Carlos Juan Finlay polyclinic, after presenting a cadre of seizures, according to The informed by the General Directorate of Health in Santiago.
These seizures occurred “after administration at the 500 mg of foreign production paracetamol house and with an expiration date of the year 2020,” the entity says.
According to the official note, the child was examined and attended “with immediacy” in the health center, but it was not possible to prevent his death.
The second minor, resident in the house itself, presented similar symptoms, which required its immediate transfer to the polyclinic and then to the Juan de la Cruz Martínez Maceira Children’s Hospital, of the provincial head, after the application of “the diagnostic-therapeutic protocols to compensate for it”.
At the time of the publication of the note, the child was already “recovered, stable and under observation” in the Intensive Care Unit of the so -called North Children’s Hospital, in the city of Santiago.
The health authorities initiated an investigation “to clarify the circumstances of the incident and strengthen security measures in the management of pharmaceutical products at home,” says the statement.
Due to this fateful event, the General Directorate of Health in Santiago de Cuba warned about “the importance of strengthening health education in communities, and promoting safe access to medicines in adequate conditions.”
The case highlights the risks of consume drugs expired or of doubtful origin, a recurring problem in the face of the shortage of medicines suffered by the island.
According to a text Posted a few months ago in Oncubaone of the most important risks of self -prescription is precisely poisoning.
According to Dr. Annie Isabel Tamayo, a first -degree specialist at MGI and Pediatrics and assistant professor at the University of Medical Sciences of Holguín “there have been cases of children who accidentally ingest some medication and are poisoned; other times, by mistake, it is their relatives, tutors or caregivers who are administered. The results are very negative.”
For several years, the lack of medicines in the country’s pharmacy system is a serious problem. The lack of financing to buy raw material has been, according to the directors of Biocubafarma, of the Ministry of Public Health, The fundamental cause of this crisis.
The news of the death of minor this Tuesday again puts in the media focus on Santiago de Cuba, when just one week ago A human head was found In a garbage collector in the city, a fact that has shuddered its inhabitants for the unusual and spooky.
A day after the finding, it transpired that the police forces had Captured to the confessed author of the crime that shocked the inhabitants of the territory.
