EMMANUEL GIROUD, Nairobi | Saturday
SITTING on a Kenyatta Hospital bed shared with another patient, a man called out repeatedly for a doctor. He is lucky: although clearly in pain, he will survive the effects of a batch of methanol-laced moonshine that this week claimed more than 90 lives and sent some 400 to hospital.
Nearby, 30 people lay in a critical condition. Methanol, added to the homemade liquor to enhance its potency, raises the body’s acidity level, attacks red blood cells, then the liver and kidneys.
The chemical, more commonly used in industry and as antifreeze, can also cause blindness.
Of those killed by the adulterated brew, 30 died in this hospital. The others perished at home or in the streets of Nairobi’s many slums where the liquor, known as chang’aa, is freely available.
“This product can kill within three or four hours because the percentage of methanol is very high, it must be more than 75 percent,” explained Kirasi Olumbe, chief pathologist at Nairobi’s city morgue.
Police, who have arrested 12 women in connection with the brew, believe an adulterated batch was widely distributed on Tuesday.
“You know, to forget they are poor, this is the only thing they can afford,” a young man visiting a friend said in explanation of chang’aa’s popularity.
Gulping down a meal of rice, beans and meat, John, 26, realised how lucky he was to survive after drinking half a litre (about a pint) of chang’aa on Thursday afternoon. A few hours later, he lost his sight.
“I will never drink again. I never drink but this time, I had a row with my parents. I was not feeling well but I couldn’t afford better than this,” he said, meaning chang’aa, which cost about 10 US cents a shot.
“I’m sure some are still drinking. Police cannot afford to go everywhere in the slums, we are not enough,” a policeman said.
Agnes, 36, a baby in her arms, waited to recover the body of her mother, 59, whose neighbours had called her to collect the body of one of her relatives.
The mother, who never usually drank according to Agnes, had had a glass with the neighbours. She fell unconscious on the way home and died, as did three of the neighbours who had also consumed the chang’aa. – AFP