3 HELD OVER 'ROGUE HEROIN' DEATHS

Police yesterday arrested three men in connection with the death of a
drug addict, as it emerged that the rogue heroin which has claimed the
lives of addicts across Britain and Ireland may have killed three more
people.

At least 31 people in Scotland, Ireland and the North-west have died
after injecting heroin contaminated with a bacterium found in soil.
But over the weekend West Midlands police said they feared the
contaminated narcotic could have claimed three more lives in the
Wolverhampton area.

The body of Derek Anderson, 45, was discovered in Wolverhampton on
Saturday. Detectives investigating the death were last night
questioning two men on suspicion of murder and one on suspicion of
supplying heroin.

Mr Anderson and the other two, who both died in hospital, showed
similar symptoms to addicts who died after injecting the contaminated
heroin into their muscles.

Last Friday, health officials from the Centres for Disease Control and
Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, issued a global health warning on the
dangers of the rogue narcotic.

Scientists from the American epidemiology centre were called in by
Laurence Gruer, a senior public health consultant at Greater Glasgow
health board, after intensive investigations in Britain failed to
yield concrete results.

Health officials have still to isolate the bacterium they believe is
causing the deaths. Their task is being made difficult by the fact
that it is anaerobic and dies when it comes into contact with oxygen.

The outbreak was first discovered in early May when heroin addicts
began showing up at the casualty departments of Glasgow hospitals with
huge abscesses. Despite intensive doses of antibiotics, they died
within hours.

Officials believe the deaths are caused by addicts missing veins and
injecting into muscles or other tissue. The acid in which the heroin
is dissolved burns a hole in the muscle which allows the bacterium to
thrive. It then produces its own deadly toxin and multiple organ
failure often ensues.

A spokesman for Greater Glasgow health board said it was too early to
confirm that the three deaths in Wolverhampton were linked to the
other rogue heroin deaths. "Those deaths are still being investigated
to establish if they are linked to the Glasgow and Dublin outbreaks."