Ten people in Quang Nam Province, central Vietnam were hospitalized for Botulinum poisoning, with one of them dead after eating pickled carp.

Cho Ray Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City on Saturday night told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that the Quang Nam Northern Mountainous Region General Hospital, where the patients are in treatment, had called for the former’s support on the morning of the same day.

Doctors at Cho Ray Hospital, through an online consultation, diagnosed the patients with Botulinum poisoning.

Due to the urgent situation, Cho Ray Hospital decided to send three experts and an antitoxin to Quang Nam to treat the patients.

They arrived in Quang Nam on Saturday afternoon and assessed the conditions of the patients.

There are three clusters of patients.

The first cluster includes three women and two men residing in Phuoc Duc Commune, Phuoc Son District, Quang Nam Province.

They developed symptoms of stomachache, vomiting, and fatigue 12-24 hours after eating pickled carp.

After receiving treatment at the Quang Nam Northern Mountainous Region General Hospital for three days, a 40-year-old woman died, while the four remaining cases are now in stable condition.

The second cluster is a female patient in Phuoc Chanh Commune, Phuoc Son District. Just one day after eating pickled carp, she vomited a lot and became weaker, so she was hospitalized.

She suffered respiratory failure and was put on a ventilator on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the third cluster consists of three males and a female, who are members of a family in Phuoc Kien Commune, Phuoc Son District.

They ate pickled carp on Thursday and showed symptoms of vomiting the next day.

Two of the men became quadriplegic, suffered respiratory failure, and were put on ventilators on Saturday, while the hands and legs of a 12-year-old boy and a 24-year-old woman became weaker.

Doctor Le Quoc Hung, head of the tropical disease department at Cho Ray Hospital, who was dispatched to Quang Nam, said all the patients ate pickled carp, which was kept in closed boxes for two to three weeks, facilitating the growth of the Clostridium Botulinum bacterium.

In addition to assisting in the treatment of the patients, Cho Ray Hospital has sent a report on the cases to the Ministry of Health and asked the Quang Nam healthcare sector to keep local residents informed to prevent similar happenings.

The three patients who are on ventilators have been prescribed Botulism Antitoxin Heptavalent, a Clostridium Botulinum antitoxin provided by Cho Ray Hospital.

In 2020, many localities in Vietnam reported similar poisoning cases after eating vegan pâté. Hanoi even recorded a botulism death.

At the time, due to the shortage of antitoxins, the World Health Organization provided Vietnam with vials of antidote worth over US$6,000 each to treat botulinum poisoning cases in the Southeast Asian country.

The antidote vials were sent from Thailand and Europe.

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