|
MORE illegal sex pills are turning up, containing high levels of a drug meant to treat diabetes.
Such pills, which claim to improve sexual performance, have already killed one man and left many others seriously ill.
Santi Bovine Penis Erecting Capsule and Zhong Hua Niu Bian join Power 1 Walnut and fake Cialis pills on the authorities' health alert because they all contain the diabetes prescription drug glibenclamide.
And there may be more out there, the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) warned yesterday.
Another worrying development - peddlers have gone from displaying and selling the pills openly at makeshift stalls in red-light districts, to hawking them in heartland areas such as Bedok and Mei Ling Street.
So the HSA will send out more officers and rope in National Environment Agency officers to keep a lookout, said the senior deputy director of HSA's Centre for Drug Administration, Mr Yee Shen Kuan.
The toll of victims continues to climb: 30 confirmed cases and 59 suspected ones, up from 26 confirmed and 54 suspected cases just four days ago.
One man has already died, another has had a stroke and brain damage, and a third is in a coma, since glibenclamidespiked Power 1 Walnut pills first surfaced here in January.
A fourth man, hospitalised in Tan Tock Seng Hospital after taking fake Cialis pills, has come out of a coma, but shows no response to other people.
Similar cases have been reported in Hong Kong and Japan. Since January, 43 people in Hong Kong have fallen ill after taking sexual enhancement pills containing glibenclamide, sold under brand names such as Nangeng, Wei Ge Wang and Li Shen. Two have since died.
Power 1 Walnut pills have also been found in Malaysia.
HSA believes the diabetes drug is probably in more than just the four types of illegal pills they have uncovered so far.
HSA chief executive officer John Lim said: 'The number of products of this type is increasing. The underlying message is: Illegal products can kill. And we don't know which ones.'
The HSA discovered Santi Bovine pills contained glibenclamide after testing samples from a patient with low blood sugar who had taken them.
The product even came with a warning about its fake versions. Ms Chan Cheng Leng, assistant director of the HSA's pharmacovigilance, communications and research division, said: 'What's ironic is that it warns you against taking counterfeit ingredients when that is precisely what we found in the product itself.'
The HSA found out about Zhong Hua Niu Bian while testing products seized from the nine raids it conducted with the police in the last two months.
It has nabbed 12 people suspected of selling them, three of whom have been charged.
The HSA has alerted healthcare professionals, and put up posters to warn foreign workers, who make up about a third of the victims.
huichieh@sph.com.sg
For a look at the fatal sex pills, click for our free video news.
|
