Mexico to prosecute supplier of contaminated medication that killed patients at Pemex hospital

A federal judge in Tabasco ordered to arrest José Roche Pérez, the supplier of sodium heparin administered at the Pemex Regional Hospital that caused the death of 14 people.

Federal sources explained that Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office (FGR) prosecuted the case for fraud, misconduct for which the arrest warrant was issued.

Between March 27 and 28, patients of the Pemex Regional Hospital’s hemodialysis area received the sodium heparin of the C18E881 lot that was contaminated and caused the death of several patients and infected 50 more.

This lot did not belong to any of the Pisa laboratories, which is the one that produces the drug, and that has informed that since 2018, it has had no contracts for the supply of sodium heparin to Pemex .

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The anticoagulant was sold to Pemex by Roche Pérez as an independent supplier .

The sodium heparin tragedy

The sodium heparin tragedy began on February 26 when over 55 patients received their hemodialysis treatment with this drug which they were later informed contained a bacteria known as Klebsiella, thus beginning a tragedy that had not been seen before in any Tabasco hospital.

The officially recognized deaths correspond to Bienvenido Sánchez Feria (76), María Soledad Magaña (55), Patricia Jiménez Marín (54), Feliciano Sánchez Osorio (65), Marina Sánchez González (49), Baldemar García Flores (77), Javier Acosta (57), and Nahum Domínguez García (72), who were provided with the contaminated drug, in addition to Salvador Córdoba Díaz (75), who got infected during catheter change.

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