A drug which had not been manufactured correctly claimed the lives of five people and has left five others in serious condition in Guangzhou, officials said yesterday.

Qiqihar No 2 Pharmaceutical Company in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province produced the doses of Armillarisini A injections, a drug used for the treatment of gallstones and gastritis, the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) said yesterday.

There's been no reports of people outside the capital of south China's Guangdong Province being exposed to the counterfeit drug.

The six seriously ill people are being treated for kidney failure at No. 3 Hospital affiliated to Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou; and Gao Zhiliang, a senior doctor at the hospital's infectious diseases department, said their condition could worsen.

The SFDA said all medicines made by the company had been sealed nationwide.

Wang Guiping, a detained suspect, is thought to have sold a ton of diethylene glycol describing it as propylene glycol, a chemical used in the production of Armillarisini A to the Qiqihar firm last September. Wang is accused of forging pharmaceutical registration certificates.

Quality control inspection at the company failed to detect the rogue chemical and it was used in the drug making process, according to the SFDA.

The drugs manufactured by the company appeared in Guangzhou and Beijing last year after being purchased in a public bidding organized by provincial medicine centers.

In Beijing, all the medicines produced by the company have been sealed in 85 drug stores and medical institutions, sources with the Beijing Drug Administration said.

Anyone using the drug is advised to stop and report to the administration.

In Shanghai no dangerous injections been found, said the city's Drug and Food Administration Bureau.

(China Daily May 16, 2006)