Need to say "no" to floating orange medicine
Over the past 4 months, Bach Mai Hospital's Poison Control Center has received 130 children with lead poisoning due to orange medicine.
On April 18, the Ministry of Health held a meeting to rectify the management of traditional medicine practice and prevent new poisoning cases caused by fake orange medicine.
Many orange medicine samples contain toxic ingredients (Photo: KT)
Mr. Cao Minh Quang, Deputy Minister of Health, said that in the past 4 months, the Poison Control Center of Bach Mai Hospital has received 130 children with lead poisoning due to orange medicine. The patients came from 27 districts in 15 provinces, including some places with high number of cases such as Bac Giang, Hai Duong, Hung Yen, Nam Dinh, Thai Binh, Hanoi, Hoa Binh, Thanh Hoa...
According to reports from the local Department of Health, most of the orange medicine is bought by people from street vendors, "medicine men, witch doctors". Testing of many medicine samples shows that the lead content in the medicine is very high, some samples contain up to 85% lead. If chronically poisoned with this type of medicine, it can cause mental retardation and stupidity.
Doctor Pham Due, Director of the Poison Control Center at Bach Mai Hospital, said that the majority of children were treated for lead poisoning after taking orange medicine. Sometimes 9-10 children were hospitalized at the same time, sometimes 2 children had to share a bed. The center has notified the local authorities to inspect and correct establishments selling medicine with toxic ingredients.
The Ministry of Health requires localities to strengthen inspection and rectification of traditional medicine activities, recall and ban the circulation of "orange medicine" without labels, origin, or registration numbers.
In particular, the Department of Medical Examination and Treatment urgently developed a treatment regimen for lead poisoning, and urgently planned to prepare 3 lead detoxification drugs that are currently not available in Vietnam: BAL, CANA2-EDTA and Succimer.
Previously, in Bac Giang, where many children were poisoned by lead, the Department of Traditional Medicine requested to handle Ms. Tien (Nguyen Thi The, in Tam Do commune, Luc Nam) for practicing without a license. Testing samples of powdered medicine at this facility, the Central Institute for Drug Testing determined that all were contaminated with lead, and 2 samples were contaminated with arsenic, an extremely toxic substance.
In Hanoi, the management agency discovered 3 establishments selling lead-containing powdered medicine, including the unlicensed establishment of Mr. Nguyen Van Tran (cluster 6, Long Xuyen commune, Phuc Tho), which had 2 types of powdered medicine containing lead; the establishment of Ms. Le Thi Soi (Ngai Cau market, An Khanh, Hoai Duc), which had 2 types of orange medicine containing lead, and the establishment of Ms. Dang Thi Tinh (Cham market, Minh Duc, Phu Xuyen) which sold medicine without a license. The Hanoi Department of Health has suspended these establishments.
In Hai Duong, Mr. Pham Dinh Dien's facility (Ngoc Mai village, Hung Thinh, Binh Giang) has two types of medicine that both contain lead.
The Ministry of Health has asked health departments to inspect private traditional medicine facilities and strictly prohibit people from treating patients on the street or selling medicine. At the same time, patients are advised to go to licensed state or private medical facilities.
According to VOV
