Blood Poisoning / KBS뉴스(News)

[Anchor Lead]
The police have questioned the medical staff at a dermatology clinic in Seoul about a mass case of blood poisoning. What investigators found out was that the sedative propofol was left at room temperature for more than 60 hours, which can result in contamination.
[Pkg]
When the patients of a well-known dermatology clinic in Gangnam, Seoul began to show symptoms of septicaemia or blood poisoning, police summoned the clinic's medical staff for questioning. After investigating 10 staff members, including the 43-year-old clinic head and skincare specialists, the police obtained consistent accounts that propofol doses had been left at room temperature for some 60 hours, from May 4th to 7th. In a joint investigation with public health authorities, the police reportedly discovered at the clinic injection room a syringe containing propofol and propofol ampules removed from their packaging. Twenty patients who underwent procedures at this clinic reported blood poisoning symptoms on May 7th, the last day of the long holiday weekend. They were all injected with the same sedative, propofol. When kept at room temperature, propofol is prone to contamination since germs multiply faster in those conditions. The police and public health authorities are looking into drug management logs to find out the times and dosages of the propofol injections. The Center for Disease Control's epidemiological survey is likely to take at least a month since the investigation has to go through multiple stages.