Nicaragua tainted brew kills 22

Extra doctors have been sent to the city of Leon, where more than 100 people are in hospital.

The tainted liquor is thought to have been mixed with methanol, which can cause blindness and organ failure.

A similar outbreak of methanol poisoning in El Salvador six years ago left at least 120 people dead.

The first cases of alcohol poisoning began to emerge earlier in the week in Leon, some 90km (55 miles) north-west of the capital, Managua.

On Friday, the Nicaraguan health ministry declared a health emergency after more than 20 people had died and scores were taken ill, some seriously.

Rum rations

Leon's public hospital is overflowing, Reuters news agency reports. Patients attached to intravenous drips line the shabby corridors while others on ventilators appear close to death.

"This is an attack on the poor," said Jose Ernesto Malta, a labourer who drank the bootleg liquor earlier in the week.

"I just hope they do something. Somebody has to pay."

Short of medicine, staff have been handing out shots of high-quality rum as ethanol contained in alcoholic drinks can help counteract the effects of methanol poisoning.

Police have so far confiscated thousands of litres of the illegally distilled sugar cane alcohol and health ministry officials are doing tests to see which batches are contaminated with methanol.

Illegally brewed alcohol is much cheaper than commercially produced beer or rum.