Alcohol poisoning cases are regularly reported in regions throughout Russia. Earlier in the year the interior minister called them a national tragedy, and urged for a crackdown on bootleg alcohol sales in the country, saying about 42,000 are killed, and many become disabled, from alcohol poisoning every year.
The Perm Territory's branch of the Federal Service for the Oversight of Consumer Protection and Welfare said, "A total of 125 bootleg alcohol poisoning cases were reported between September 11 and October 20. The condition of 115 people is moderately serious, three are in a satisfactory condition, but seven are a severe condition."
The service said seventy-three patients have been diagnosed for toxic hepatitis, and that poisoning has been reported in 29 residential areas of the Perm Territory. The victims appeared to have drunk spirit-based detergents and other harmful chemicals in vodka bottles.
In the city of Kamensk-Uralsky in the neighboring Sverdlovsk Region, three people were reported dead and about 60 hospitalized with toxic hepatitis after drinking ethanol-based glass cleaner sold as vodka in September and early October.
Hospital officials said their livers have been severely damaged and are almost beyond treatment. Checks of shops and drugstores were conducted in the city in the wake of the mass poisoning.
Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said in June, "Poisoning by bootleg alcohol in Russia has reached the scale of a national tragedy, and we must do everything to end sales of counterfeit products on Russian territory.
