At least 51 deaths in Argentina linked to tainted medical fentanyl

Argentina is experiencing the worst drug contamination scandal in its history. Authorities have successfully linked 69 cases with tainted fentanyl, and the official death toll sits at 51. However, the number could be greater, as judicial authorities are investigating close to 100 deaths associated with the drug.

All of the cases have been linked to two batches produced by pharmaceutical company HLB Pharma and its laboratory, Laboratorio Ramallo. Last week, the prosecutor’s office charged 17 individuals, and Judge Ernesto Kreplak ordered the detention of nine of them. Among them are the company’s owner, Ariel García Furfaro; his two brothers, Diego and Damián García Furfaro; his mother and grandmother, Nilda Furfaro and Olga Arena, who are the company’s primary stockholders; and the managers and manufacturing supervisors of Ramallo Laboratory. García Furfaro’s lawyer declined to comment.

The judicial investigation has shown serious flaws during the production of the tainted fentanyl, explains Adriana Francese, lawyer for 15 of the victims’ families and a victim herself.

Francese’s nephew, 18-year-old Renato Nicolini, was hospitalised after a car accident near Buenos Aires on 25 April. He died 10 days later. By then, the hospital had been investigating several cases of patients in a critical condition who were infected with two bacteria: Klebsiella pneumoniae  and Ralstonia pickettii. The latter had been identified as not part of the hospital’s typical flora, Francese notes.