Media Awareness Project16 Jun 2000 – Irish Examiner
Ireland: Bug That Killed Heroin Addicts Identified By Scientists
Author: Conor Keane
| BUG THAT KILLED HEROIN ADDICTS IDENTIFIED BY SCIENTISTSA SOIL BASED bacteria that thrives in dead flesh has been identified as the heroin contaminant which caused the deaths of 37 addicts in Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales.
Clostridium novyi Type A is the name of the bacteria which health experts believe caused the deaths of the 36 injecting heroin users. Experts at the Public Health Laboratory Service in Cardiff, Wales, and at the Centre for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, are now satisfied that the bacteria clostridium novyi Type A is the source of the illness which baffled health chiefs since it first emerged in Glasgow on April 19. Professor Brian Duerden, medical director of the Public Health Laboratory Service said: ”Clostridium novyi Type A is well known as a cause of severe infection in domestic animals but rarely does so in humans. ̶ |