‘Isotab’ found tainted with antimalarial

LAHORE: A laboratory in London Tuesday declared one of the cardiac drugs, which caused the death of more than hundred patients in Lahore, as contaminated with an antimalarial, Geo News reported.

According to details, the samples of Isotab tablets, dispatched to a state-of-the-art lab in London, were tested as substandard and injurious to health.

The lab report revealed Isotab samples to be heavily contaminated with Pyrimethamine, a commonly used antimalarial.

Experts are attributing Pyrimethamine to those deadly reactions, which continue to kill cardiac patients using the tainted life-saving drugs.

Traces of antimalarial in the samples of “Isotab” were dangerously high, it added.

Chief minister Punjab, Shahbaz Sharif, in a meeting called after the receipt of the report discussed the matter at length.

CM was also told that health department experts had found an antidote, which they are hopeful would help patients cope with the adverse effects of the substandard medicines taken.

CM gave go-ahead to this newly found remedy to be administered in fresh cases of drug reaction.