THREE MORE DRUG ADDICTS HIT BY MYSTERY ILLNESS

Three more heroin addicts in Glasgow are seriously ill after using an
apparently contaminated batch of the drug.

Two women and a man have been taken to hospital in Glasgow since
Friday.

Twenty-five people have now been affected by the contaminated heroin,
the origin of which remains unknown. Nine people, eight of them women,
have died.

All those affected have developed a serious abscess as a result of
injecting into muscle or accidentally outside a vein.

Yesterday, Greater Glasgow Health Board said the three addicts had
similar symptoms to all the drug users who had already been admitted
to hospital.

"Post mortems have been carried out on eight cases," a spokeswoman for
Greater Glasgow Health Board said. "Their deaths have all been
certified by the pathologists as due to multiple organ failure
consistent with overwhelming infection. Further investigations are
being carried out."

The board said tests of heroin so far had revealed no positive results
and the root of the infection remains a mystery.

Police and health authorities in Fife said yesterday they believed a
contaminated batch of drugs was being sold. The heroin is thought to
be likely to lead to infection, but police were not treating it as
linked to the outbreak in Glasgow.

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