24 die after drinking hooch in Honduras

Tegucigalpa, July 11 (IANS) Twentyfour people have died over the past two weeks in Honduras after drinking illicit liquor, said health authorities.

The head of epidemicological security for the Health Secretariat, Tomas Guevara, told EFE that another 24 people were poisoned by aguardiente, a liquor distilled from sugar cane, that had been adulterated with methanol.

He added that of the fatalities, 11 died in the Tegucigalpa Teaching Hospital and 13 at their homes in the city of Siguatepeque, 113 km north of the Honduran capital.

"The Attorney General's Office found in the autopsies that there was methanol in the bodies of the victims," Guevara said.

Some of the 24 survivors remain at Santa Teresa Hospital in Comayagua, some 80 km north of Tegucigalpa.

Health authorities are also investigating the death of a man Monday, presumably from drinking aguardiente laced with methanol, in the western municipality of Jesus de Otoro.

The spokesperson for the AG's office, Issa Alvarado, said that authorities are "studying the alcohol that was seized in Siguatepeque and Comayagua to see if it is adulterated."

--IANS/EFE

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