How are toxins in Minh Chay pate discovered?

Doctor Nguyen Trung Nguyen, Director of the Poison Control Center, Bach Mai Hospital, said that on August 18, the Poison Control Center of Bach Mai Hospital received two patients, husband and wife, nearly 70 years old, in serious condition.

According to family members, in July, their grandparents bought Pate Minh Chay.

To accurately diagnose the condition of two serious patients, doctors had to do many tests and imaging.

`However, the results did not explain the muscle weakness and paralysis. We took the female patient to have an electromyography test at the Neurology department, the male patient was not healthy enough to complete the test.

Doctor Nguyen Trung Nguyen, Director of Poison Control Center, Bach Mai Hospital.

Electromyography results showed that the patient had characteristic manifestations of botulinum poisoning, including reduced amplitude of bilateral ulnar nerve movements, a reduction of more than 10% in repeated stimulation tests, and muscle cell damage.

Samples of vegetarian pate in jars eaten by two patients were sent to the National Institute for Food Safety and Hygiene Testing and the Central Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, both of which detected Clostridium botulinum bacteria.

`These factors are similar to the characteristics of botulinum poisoning appearing in the medical literature, along with the results of food microbiology testing and toxicology testing, confirming that the patient has botulinum poisoning,` said Dr. Nguyen.

Due to the severe and long-lasting nature of the poisoning, two patients had underlying medical conditions, so the risk of death was very high.

In Vietnam, there is currently no specific antidote.

The price of two bottles of antidote is about 16,000 USD, completely funded by WHO, the patient does not have to pay any money.

In addition to the two patients being treated as inpatients, in the past three days, the Center has received more than 10 other patients for examination after eating Minh Chay pate.

Minh Chay pate poisoning patient is being treated at Bach Mai Hospital.

Doctor Nguyen said that food poisoning caused by botulinum toxin is a classic type of poisoning in medical literature but in reality it occurs infrequently, epidemiological factors and characteristic manifestations of the disease are often difficult to exploit, so

This type of poisoning comes from the production of food products in sealed packaging (bottles, jars, cans, boxes, bags) that are not safe, causing bacteria to penetrate, grow, and cause poisoning.

The culprit bacteria is called Clostridium botulinum, also known as meat-poisoning bacteria (because it originally occurred mainly with canned meat).

Botulinum toxin is an extremely powerful neurotoxin, but is quickly destroyed at 100 degrees Celsius, so poisoning does not occur when eating freshly cooked food.

Characteristic features of paralysis are flaccid paralysis, symmetrical paralysis on both sides, spreading down from the head to the feet.

This is a special type of poisoning that occurs infrequently.

Due to the rare number of poisoning cases, very few companies want to produce and supply this medicine, leading to difficulty in purchasing and very high prices.

Two bottles of medicine used for patients in Bach Mai were transferred from Thailand’s antidote warehouse. The medicine label clearly states that the medicine is only used for the purposes of the Strategic National Stockpile Use Only.