Methanol deaths at 21

Ostrava, North Moravia, Sept 17 (CTK) - Bootleg alcohol has already claimed 21 lives in the Czech Republic as a 47-year-old old woman died of methanol poisoning in the Teaching Hospital in Ostrava, north Moravia, on Sunday night, hospital spokesman Tomas Oborny told CTK yesterday.

The woman was hospitalised in a critical condition in Trinec, north Moravia, from Friday and she was transported to the Ostrava hospital on Sunday evening where she died on the same day.

Her husband is still hospitalised in Trinec with methanol poisoning. His condition is improving and the methanol level in his blood is decreasing, head doctor Marian Barta, from the Trinec hospital, said.

The man's mother-in-law was also taken to hospital on Friday as she was drinking the same liquor with the couple. Her condition was the best of the three.

The woman who died later was drinking only bootleg rum containing lethal methanol on Thursday evening, while her husband and mother kept drinking on Friday and they consumed a high-quality alcohol then. This saved the man's life, Barta said.

The patient was taking the fomepizole Norwegian medicine against methanol poisoning. "The medicine was definitely efficient," Barta said.

However, its price is astronomic, and consequently it is administered only to the most serious cases, he added.

Another tens of people are hospitalised with methanol poisoning in the Czech Republic.

In reaction to the cases, the Health Ministry indefinitely banned the sales and serving of spirits containing more than 20 percent of alcohol across the country as from Friday evening.