2010-04-23
KAMPALA (Reuters) - Eighty people in southwest Uganda have died after consuming alcohol laced with methanol, a health officer said on Friday.

Some people in the east African country often consume cheap, home-made liquor, which is sometimes laced with chemicals for potency, which usually causes death.

Patrick Tusiime, a health officer in Kabale district near the border with Rwanda, told Reuters the deaths started three weeks ago but authorities took days to establish the cause because families failed to disclose that victims fell ill after consuming alcohol.

"Our response was hampered initially because...family members refused to tell us that these people had consumed methanol-laced alcohol," he said.

Local brewers had mixed large amounts of methanol in Waragi, a gin extracted from bananas, he said.

Ugandans often complain that their health care system is ineffective, with frequent drug shortages and inadequate and poorly-paid health workers. Patients walk miles in some regions to reach the nearest health facility.

Tusiime said victims of the poisoned liquor became blind and suffered kidney and liver failure before dying.

"It's a terrible chemical and it also damages the brain."

Local authorities, he said, had banned the production and sale of Waragi and confiscated stock from traders, but residents were defying the ban and hiding the liquor under their beds.

"House-to-house searches have been conducted and all the alcohol found has been confiscated but people are stubborn and have found ingenious ways of hiding it," he said.