The echoes of the death of two girls after they took a dose of medicine in a pharmacy in Alexandria continue to cast a shadow in Egypt after the decision of the investigation authorities to imprison the pharmacist, the owner of the pharmacy in which the two girls took the injections, as well as the pharmacy workers.
The Alexandria Pharmacists Syndicate announced that the doctor who wrote the medicine for the two girls did not write in the medicine’s “prescription” an allergy test when taking it.
The Syndicate added in a statement, “After following up on the prosecution’s investigations and investigations of the detectives, which included the doctor’s prescriptions, syringe dispensers, and surveillance cameras in the pharmacy, it was found that the two syringes were dispensed according to the doctor’s prescription and according to the dose mentioned in the prescription, and the antibiotic required for the first child was dispensed as prescribed by the treating doctor, which is an order Attached to syringe dispensers and pharmacy cameras.
She explained: “The owner of the pharmacy herself explained to the mother of the two girls that the required syringe for the second child was not available and that there was an analogue of it with the same active substance, so the mother of the two girls went to look for her outside and then returned to the pharmacy and asked the pharmacist to give the injection, knowing that an allergy test was not written on the prescription and that it was not listed in the internal leaflet. The person who gave the injection is a worker – a bachelor’s degree in nursing – and she has enough experience to give the injection.”
Dr. Mohamed Onsi, head of the Alexandria Pharmacists Syndicate, told Al-Hurra website that “there are international standards regulating the process of giving antibiotics as medicine, and I have hundreds of prescriptions in which doctors write down a sensitivity test for some types of antibiotics, and the mother of the two girls told the pharmacist and her staff that she had conducted an allergy test for the two girls when They took the first dose of the drug before they went to the pharmacy where they took the second dose.”
On the responsibility of the attending physician not to write an allergy test in the prescription, as the Pharmacists Syndicate mentioned in its statement, Onsi said: “I do not place accusations or responsibility on anyone because there are investigations conducted by the Public Prosecution and it will determine the responsibilities, but we mentioned this matter in the Syndicate’s statement as an abstract proven information. Through the incident and investigations, after following up on all procedures, decisions and events since the death of the two girls until now.
He added: “The death of the two girls together at the same time after taking a dose of the drug with the same active substance, even if the brand name of the drug is different, is something worth stopping at, and investigations are underway about it now, especially with the mother of the two girls acknowledging that they took an allergy test when taking the first dose.”
The investigation authorities decided to renew the detention of the pharmacist, the owner of the pharmacy in which the two girls took the medicine, and the staff who work with her in the pharmacy, for 15 days, pending investigations.
The Public Prosecution Office in Egypt announced several measures it had taken as part of its investigations into the incident, including seizing and inspecting the pharmacy that witnessed the incident and assigning a specialized committee to review its licenses and examine its drugs.
She stated that the pharmacist’s accusations are that the workers who work with her in the pharmacy are allowed to practice the profession of pharmacy without a license, and that the workers are accused of practicing pharmacy professions without a license, in addition to accusing one of the workers of giving the two girls a drug that caused their deaths.
Mahmoud Al-Najjar, the uncle of the two girls, Iman and Sajida, told Al-Hurra: “The two girls felt side effects and complications as soon as they took the two injections of medicine in the pharmacy. It is necessary to go to the hospital immediately, and there the doctors tried for five hours from eleven in the evening to five in the morning to save the two girls, but they were not able because of the severe complications that occurred to the two girls.”
The captain of Alexandria Pharmacists, in his interview with Al Hurra, demanded the competent authorities represented by the Ministry of Health and the Medicines Authority “to issue a decision to stop hitting syringes in public pharmacies or to legalize it with specific and clear measures in order to preserve patients and pharmacists because pharmacies are under severe pressure regarding citizens’ request to take injections in pharmacies.”
Dr. Ahmed Hussein, a member of the board of directors of the General Syndicate of Physicians in Egypt, said: “It is followed that the attending physician writes the appropriate medicine for the condition in the prescription and does not write the test procedure, because the law basically requires that whoever gives medicine, especially intravenous injections, be a nurse under the supervision of the doctor because the effect of intravenous injections is quick and appears immediately. after eating it.”
He added: “We must get out of the circle of assigning responsibilities because the allergy that caused the death of the two girls is difficult to verify or not, but what we must all work on is to stop the culture of taking injections outside hospitals so that there is a willingness to deal with symptoms and side effects of medicines.”
Hussein stressed that “the law includes the necessary procedures and instructions for taking medicines, and there must be procedures to activate the law and monitor its implementation in this regard so that medicines are not dispensed without a doctor’s prescription, and medicines are not taken in pharmacies at all, even if they are drinking medicines, and work to increase society’s awareness that pharmacies It is not a place to take injections and take medicines, but only a place to dispense medicines.”