Condition improving for patients hospitalised after suspected poisoning incident
The clinical condition of all four people hospitalised at Larnaca general hospital after consuming water from a water cooler has improved, with one of the patients, who had been intubated, now taken off mechanical ventilation.
Speaking to the Cyprus News Agency, Okypy spokesman Charalambos Charilaou said the patient had been removed from respiratory support but remains in the ICU.
Charilaou described the development as “particularly encouraging.”
“Their clinical condition today is better. One patient has come off the ventilator, which is a positive sign. The others are improving day by day,” he said.
According to Charilaou, doctors are optimistic that the patients will be discharged soon, although he added that it is not possible to predict when this will happen.
Asked whether there is a common clinical pattern among the patients that could point to a specific type of poisoning, the spokesman limited his comments to noting that “their condition is improving and we hope they will be able to leave hospital”.
He added that samples have already been sent for histological and toxicological testing.
“At this moment, we are treating four individuals whose condition is improving daily. Tests are being carried out, which require time before results are available, while a police investigation is also under way,” he said.
Asked whether there was any cause for concern for the general public or whether the incident should be considered isolated, Charilaou declined to speculate, saying “we should not enter into such assumptions”.
Finally, regarding when test results are expected, he said he was not in a position to give a timeframe for their completion.
As a result of the suspected poisoning incident, a 78-year-old man died on Sunday after he, his 73-year-old wife and three other people felt unwell while having coffee together.
Speaking to the Cyprus Mail, police said the couple’s son had previously been arrested in connection with a drug-related case.