Heroin death toll still rising

Addicts are being advised to smoke their heroin

A mystery illness affecting heroin users in the Glasgow area has claimed another life.

A male user died in the city's Stobhill Hospital on Thursday taking the death toll to 11 in the last two weeks.

Greater Glasgow Health Board is investigating the cause of the illness, which has hit addicts who injected heroin into muscle rather than veins.

On Wednesday it was revealed British military are investigating whether anthrax, the deadly bug used in germ warfare, could be to blame for the deaths.

But with two addicts still seriously ill in hospital in Glasgow the health board is playing down any link to anthrax.

Sufferers have been treated at Stobhill Hospital

A spokeswoman said no more cases of the illness had been identified and she said the board was also considering necrotising fasciitis, or "flesh-eating disease", as a possible cause.

She added that addicts were being advised to smoke heroin rather than inject it.

The possibility of a link to anthrax was raised after anthrax bacilli were found in the spinal fluid of a Norwegian addict who died in April after injecting heroin into muscle.

It was feared there could be a link with the Scottish victims.

Anthrax link disputed

They died after the appearance of symptoms that included leakage of fluids around the heart and lungs and an abnormally active immune system.

Tests were carried out by the Ministry of Defence's Centre for Applied Microbiology Research (CAMR) based at Porton Down, in Wiltshire, and blood samples from two Scottish victims tested positive for "protective antigen", the main anthrax toxin.

But Dr Laurence Gruer, consultant in public health medicine at Greater Glasgow Health Board, said extensive tests had been carried out on all cases presented in Glasgow hospitals.

Dr Laurence Gruer: "Negative results"

All these tests had proved entirely negative for anthrax infection.

Dr Gruer said samples from seven patients were sent to CAMR for anthrax exposure.

While two of the samples gave a "very weak positive reaction" this did not prove a link.

He said: "In the absence of any other positive results for anthrax, the CAMR scientists conclude that these results are very unlikely to be due to anthrax infection."

Dr Gruer said further tests had been carried out to establish if other toxic substances or citric acid used by addicts to dissolve the drug were present in the heroin

He said: "All the test results so far have been negative for traces of anthrax or any significant toxin."

Anthrax is common in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, where most of Europe's heroin originates.

It is possible that animal-derived material from the region, such as gelatin or bone meal, may well be contaminated with spores. Such material could have found its way into heroin.