The death toll from the scandal involving contaminated fentanyl administered in Argentina's hospitals grew to over 100 on Thursday, the government said, blaming a local pharma lab as outrage grew over the slow response to the crisis.
Since May, the country has been trying to determine how many deaths were linked to bacteria-infected supplies of the drug used in hospitals in four provinces across the nation, as well as the capital Buenos Aires.
Ariel Furfaro García, the owner of HLB Pharma group, was the "manufacturer of the batch of contaminated fentanyl responsible for the deaths of more than 100 people," a spokesperson for Argentina's President Javier Milei said in a statement.
The statement claimed that "all doses of contaminated fentanyl were withdrawn from the market" and vowed to “ensure that the person responsible ends up behind bars."
Following an investigation, Argentina's drug regulatory agency ANMAT had shut down the lab three months before the first deaths from the tainted fentanyl occurred, the statement added.
Furfaro García has previously denied claims that he was responsible, blaming a former colleague for planting the story in the media.
Two weeks ago, relatives of victims protested outside a hospital in the city of La Plata, Buenos Aires Province, where the first deaths were reported, demanding "justice for the fentanyl victims."
The latest increase in the death toll comes just weeks before September 7 legislative elections in Buenos Aires Province, which is the most populous in the country.
The vote is considered a prelude to October's national midterm legislative elections, which will serve as a popularity test of the self-described "anarcho-capitalist" Milei.
At a campaign rally also in La Plata on Thursday night, Milei accused the followers of his arch-nemesis, ex-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, of an "atrocious cover-up" of Furfaro García's involvement in the fentanyl deaths.
He did not provide any evidence for his allegation.
Calling Furfaro García a "longtime Kirchnerite associate," he accused his rivals of getting "getting away with any atrocity."
The statement issued by Milei alleged that the entrepreneur "from greengrocer to multimillionaire pharmaceutical entrepreneur" by selling his products to the State.
It also sought to link the opposition government in Buenos Aires Province to the tainted lab.
Milei’s rally took place just 20 blocks from the Hospital Italiano in La Plata, where several of the affected patients died.
A probe into the fentanyl deaths first arose from a complaint filed by ANMAT, which had received a report from a hospital that discovered the tainted drug in its supply, an employee of the agency told the AFP news agency on condition of anonymity.
Deaths were recorded at hospitals in the provinces of Buenos Aires, Santa Fe (centre), Formosa (north-east) and Córdoba (centre), according to reports.
Experts have warned that the death toll could rise as new medical records are reviewed and cases are confirmed in hospitals that to date had not reported any fentanyl-linked deaths.
HLB Pharma Group said in a statement that it is “at the disposal of the courts” and accused political and economic sectors of “opportunism” in “launching a media smear campaign” against the company.
It said that “contamination such as that reported by some media outlets – with one or more multi-resistant bacteria typical of a hospital environment in the same batch – is simply not possible in a laboratory environment.”
According to the Infobae website, authorities at the Hospital Italiano confirmed the presence of Klebsiella pneumoniae and Ralstonia pickettii bacteria in opioid vials.
Fentanyl is between 50 and 100 times more potent than morphine, according to data from the World Health Organisation.
In the United States, it is wreaking havoc: it is estimated that more than 80,000 people died from overdoses in that country in 2024, of which 48,422 were put down to fentanyl.
– TIMES/AFP/NA
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