Methanol is an alcohol that is sometimes added to ethanol. to give it a kick. Sometimes the result of bad distilling and production. During the time of prohibition methanol poisoning jumped due to poorly made illegal ethanol. I guess today is no different. Methanol has many actions on the body. The end for many is severe acidosis and death. For some they will survive, but be blind. Thankfully there is a treatment. The treatment, fomepizole, is very effective. That brings me to the note below. This request came from a physician and toxicologist who is the head of the Norwegian Center for NBC Medicine.
Dear all members of AACT;
I just wanted to inform you all that there is an ongoing methanol outbreak in Libya; various reports exists, but as for yesterday, up to 79 fatalities and > 700 patients were reported (depending on the source sited). Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) is mobilizing large scale, and we are leaving today (Dr Morten Rostrup, MD, PhD Dept of Acute Medicine, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo & former international president of MSF), and on Sunday (Raido Paasma, Estonia and myself) to support them.
We have been able to get hold of quite a bit of fomepizole from our own stock in Norway, the distributor in Scandinavia (SOBI), and we will likely also have donations from the producer in Europe, EusaPharma. We are also bringing along some equipment and enzymes to establish the formate analysis in Libya. If there are any of the AACT members who have stores of fomepizole they want to donate, also which is soon to expire (recently expired fomepizole would also do); Please contact me ASAP on the below address: If it could be in Oslo by Saturday evening or Sunday morning, I will be able to carry it along with my luggage, hence no formal papers for import to Libya is needed.
Thank you all in advance for helping our Libyan friends
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