Drug control office: Medicine for methanol poisoning safe

Prague, Sept 13 (CTK) - A special medicine for methanol poisoning will be administered to Czech patients in need after the State Institute for Drug Control (SUKL) has confirmed that it is safe and its efficacy and quality was sufficiently proved, the SUKL press section told CTK Thursday.

The medicine is urgently needed in the Czech Republic over the rising number of methanol poisoning cases. Bootleg alcohol has already claimed 18 lives in the country and some 30 people have serious health problems after having drunk tainted alcohol.

Health Minister Leos Heger (TOP 09) has asked the SUKL for its stance since the new medicine, based on fomepizole, is not registered in the Czech Republic.

The medicine, which is to be supplied from Norway, is to be available in hospitals as from Friday.

"In view of the fact that the respective drug is registered in an EU member state, particularly in France, the SUKL considers its safety, quality and efficacy sufficiently verified," said Lucie Sustkova, from the SUKL press section.

It is up to the Health Ministry to decide on its use in treatment and on further steps in this respect.

Fomepizole is used as an antidote in methanol or ethylene glycol poisoning. The substance inhibits the alcohol dehydrogenase, the enzyme that catalyses the initial steps in the metabolism of methanol and ethylene glycol to their toxic metabolites.

Heger told reporters Thursday that some 30 packagings of the medicine have been dispatched from Norway to the Czech Republic. Czech hospitals should receive them on Friday.

The medicine is a gift from the Norwegian Toxicological Information Centre.

One dose costs 200,000 crowns. It can be administered to diabetic patients as well as people with an organ dysfunction.

Heger recalled that Nordic countries had long-term experience with this treatment. They annually register a number of methanol poisoning cases as bootleg alcohol is being made there en masse.

Methanol poisoning has been traditionally treated by the administration of pure ethanol. However, ethanol must not be combined with fomepizole that is applied by injection.