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Update: Mother and baby die after taking medicine from Cologne pharmacy

Police released details Tuesday about a 28-year-old woman and her new born baby who died last week as a result of taking medicine from a pharmacy in Cologne.

Update: Mother and baby die after taking medicine from Cologne pharmacy
Police have warned that medicine containing glucose from the store should be brought to the nearest police station. Photo: DPA

The baby was born via an emergency cesarean section after the mother took a glucose mixture produced in the Heilig-Geist-Apotheke in the Cologne district of Longerich.

Another woman dealt with complications after consuming the same medicine, but stopped taking the mixture. Both cases were reported by a doctor last Thursday.

Police revealed at a press conference Tuesday afternoon that the pregnant woman died of multiple organ failure. Though doctors attempted to save her baby by performing the emergency C-section, the newborn also died.

Possibly still in circulation

A toxic substance has been discovered within the glucose container at the pharmacy, and they cannot rule out the possibility of the poisonous substance still being in circulation.

Though the public were first warned about the poisonous solution on Monday, there have been no further reports so far of anyone having glucose from the affected pharmacy at home.

According to police spokesperson Ralf Remmert, the glucose solution was sold as a test for gestational diabetes (high blood sugar that develops during pregnancy and usually disappears after giving birth).

These tests are carried out as standard procedure during pregnancy, according to the German Diabetes Society.

'I am stunned'

The owner of the pharmacy Till Fuxius told DPA that the deaths are a mystery, “I am stunned. I cannot explain it”.

The pharmacist is relying on the police investigation to provide answers, “I am a witness, not accused”.

For the time being, Cologne authorities have banned this particular pharmacy from selling self-manufactured medicines.

Investigators have warned against taking glucose-based medicines that were made by the branch as the police look further into the case.

“We are continuing to investigate at full speed,” said a police spokesperson on Tuesday morning.

However, he could currently not say whether the Cologne homicide commission, who have taken on the investigation, had been notified of other cases.

Police and city authorities stress that patients with medicine containing glucose from this pharmacy branch should hand them into the nearest police station. 

At the moment, other pharmacy branches do not seem to be affected.

On Tuesday morning, the Heilig-Geist-Apotheke remained in operation, reported RP Online.

Many of the current customers seemed unaware of the investigation, stated the newspaper. “If that's the case, then I find it highly unsettling,” said an older customer.

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POLICE

Denmark convicts man over bomb joke at airport

A Danish court on Thursday gave a two-month suspended prison sentence to a 31-year-old Swede for making a joke about a bomb at Copenhagen's airport this summer.

Denmark convicts man over bomb joke at airport

In late July, Pontus Wiklund, a handball coach who was accompanying his team to an international competition, said when asked by an airport agent that
a bag of balls he was checking in contained a bomb.

“We think you must have realised that it is more than likely that if you say the word ‘bomb’ in response to what you have in your bag, it will be perceived as a threat,” the judge told Wiklund, according to broadcaster TV2, which was present at the hearing.

The airport terminal was temporarily evacuated, and the coach arrested. He later apologised on his club’s website.

“I completely lost my judgement for a short time and made a joke about something you really shouldn’t joke about, especially in that place,” he said in a statement.

According to the public prosecutor, the fact that Wiklund was joking, as his lawyer noted, did not constitute a mitigating circumstance.

“This is not something we regard with humour in the Danish legal system,” prosecutor Christian Brynning Petersen told the court.

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