Consumption of tainted alcohol has killed 13 people in Kuwait in recent days, with dozens of others requiring urgent medical care, the Gulf state’s health ministry announced on Wednesday.
“Hospitals have dealt with 63 cases of alcohol poisoning resulting from the consumption of beverages contaminated with methanol since last Saturday,” the ministry said in a statement.
Importing alcohol was banned by Kuwait’s government in 1964, and its consumption was criminalised in the 1980s.
According to the health ministry, the rare spate of alcohol poisonings resulted in 21 cases of blindness and impaired vision, 51 cases requiring urgent dialysis and 31 cases requiring a ventilator, with all the patients coming from Kuwait’s Asian expatriate community.
A large proportion of Kuwait’s population comprises migrant workers from South Asia, who are heavily represented in the construction, domestic service and retail sectors.
str-csp/smw
© Agence France-Presse
