LAHORE: Drug reaction claimed the life of another patient at the Chest Surgery Unit of the Mayo Hospital on Monday, creating panic among 14 other patients as the condition of most of them was stated to be serious.

The incident took place late on Sunday when the staff administered injection to more than 16 patients and they collapsed soon after taking it.

According to the preliminary reports, a young girl who had also got the shot breathed her last within two hours after the injection was administered to her and other patients at 7pm on Sunday.

On Monday, another patient, Doulat Khan (28) who was brought from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa also died of the severe complications due to the same allegedly faulty injectable drug.

Newly appointed Chief Executive Officer CEO Prof Haroon Hamid confirmed the drug reaction had claimed lives of two patients so far while the condition of some others was serious. He said the ward’s female staff had injected the drug to 16 patients in the ward on Sunday. It seems the fault was not in the drug rather a solution that was added to it before injecting it to the patients.

However, a three-member committee constituted soon after the incident is investigating the drug reaction case.

A senior pharmacist, Noor Mehar, said the staff of the ward concerned ignored the warning and the precautions before administering drugs to patients.

As per the health advisory issued particularly for the said drug, he said, it was suggested that the solutions containing calcium gluconate and ceftriaxone should not be mixed with the drug-in-question because they could cause precipitation that could prove fatal.

Mr Mehar declared it a blatant error that led to the unfortunate drug reaction and added that the Punjab government had already issued the alert following an advisory by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of America.

To a question, he alleged the antibiotic injection which caused a severe reaction to 16 patients and deaths of two of them had also been administered to many patients of other wards of the same hospital the same day. However, no such reaction was reported in any other ward of the hospital, he said and added that this showed the standard guidelines issued for this particular medicine were blatantly ignored in the Chest Surgical Ward of the hospital only.

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2025