5 kids turn blind after using Chlorhexidine drug

Medical error or the urge for financial gain has reportedly rendered five innocent Nigerians in Yobe State blind after being wrongly administered a drug.

The drug, an umbilical cord care gel, said to have been imported into the country from India by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), is known as chlorhexidine.

It is meant for treating neonatal infection in newborns, but was allegedly wrongly packaged by the manufacturers who are based in India.

The drug was said to have been imported by UNICEF into the country despite warning by the Federal Ministry of Health not to do so as it is also being manufactured in the country.

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The drug was said to have been labeled for the treatment of umbilical cords but packaged like eye drops, thereby confusing some parents who applied them as such instead of putting them on the navels of the babies.

As a result, it is feared that apart from the five kids affected by the drug, the number is likely going to increase because it has been administered on many kids.

Mis-labeling of the same drug, it was learnt, has also been reported to have had the same consequence on some kids in Liberia.

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