One more person from central China's Hubei Province was killed after receiving an antibiotic injection that is suspected to have caused the death of a six-year-old girl and sickened 48 others.

The dead, identified to be Shang Hongfen, 48, from Yidu, a city in Yichang, was hospitalized at the No.1 People's Hospital of Yidu for suppurative nasosinusitis on July 23, according to information from Hubei Provincial Adverse Drug Reaction (ADR) Monitoring Center.

The woman patient started to have intravenous injection produced by the Anhui Huayuan Worldbest Biology Pharmacy Co in east China's Anhui Province, on July 25, but she became very ill, with symptoms including chill and stomach discomfort. She died on August 2.

Before this case, the problematic drug is also suspected of having caused the death of the six-year-old Liu Sichen from Harbin, capital of northeastern China's Heilongjiang Province, on July 27. Liu was injected with the drug while being treated for a common cold on July 24.

Ten other people in Hubei were also sickened after having intravenous injection of the same drug, bringing the total number of the people sickened by the problematic drug to 48.

In Anhui Province where the drug was produced, more than 1.02 million bottles have been recalled or sealed, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Friday.

The batch of problematic drugs were made in June and July, said sources from the Anhui Provincial Food and Drug Bureau.

The Anhui Huayuan Worldbest Biology Pharmacy Co, a subsidiary of the Shanghai Worldbest Co Ltd, produced 3.68 million bottles for injection in the batch.

A general view of the Anhui Huayuan Worldbest Biology Pharmacy Co August 4, 2006

By Thursday the company, based in Fuyang city, had stopped production and recalled 539,000 bottles, sealing a further 485,000 bottles.

A spokesman for the Anhui Provincial Food and Drug Bureau said officials had moved into the company premises to investigate.

"Production cannot be resumed until the investigation is complete," said the spokesman, who added the bureau had ordered a province-wide inspection of all major pharmaceutical companies.

The Ministry of Health issued an urgent circular on Thursday night, ordering all batches of the glucose injections produced in the past two months by the Anhui firm be immediately suspended from use.

"The drug has been in use for years. Many pharmaceutical plants produce the drug. So the problem might be caused by the producer in Anhui," said Mao Qun'an, a ministry spokesman.

The dead girl, identified as Liu Sichen, reportedly had an intravenous injection at about 2 PM on July 24, said Sun Pengli, director of the Adverse Drug Reaction Monitoring Centre of Harbin, on Friday.

The girl became seriously ill with a high fever within 20 minutes of being given the injection. She was transferred to two hospitals for emergency treatment, but was declared dead on July 27.

Li Huahong, section chief of the publicity office of the No 2 Hospital Affiliated to the Harbin Medical University, said the girl was already in a coma when she was sent to the hospital.

Patients from provinces and regions including Qinghai, Guangxi, Zhejiang, Heilongjiang and Shandong have reported chest discomfort, kidney pain, stomach ache, diarrhoea, nausea, vomiting, and even anaphylactic shock after having injections of the glucose produced by the Anhui company.

In Heilongjiang, 11 people aged between 17 and 70 were being treated in hospital on Friday after they were injected with the drug. Another patient was released from hospital.

Sources with the No 2 Hospital said that these patients shared the same symptoms such as low blood pressure and liver and kidney damage.

Wang Xinchun, director of the emergency ward of the hospital, said that all 11 patients were in a "stable condition" now.

"We began to suspect it was not an isolated case after we received news of the third similar case," he said.

A special medical team and wards were assigned to cope with the increasing number of patients suffering adverse effects from the drug, Wang said.

Almost all the patients were from a rural area where they received the injections from private clinics.

Sun Weiping, 27, from Hulan District in the suburb of Harbin, who decided to leave the hospital, said he fell into a coma while being given a third injection on July 25.

He was rushed to the hospital the next day after the local county hospital was unable to pinpoint the cause of his coma.

Ten days of treatment cost him more than 10,000 yuan (US$1,250).

"We can't afford it so I have to go home to recover," said Sun, who was still sweating from the stomach pain. "The doctors said my liver and kidneys were damaged."

Pointing at his daughter's ankle, where the needle left a purple mark, Guo Zhiming, a farmer from Zhaoyuan County, said: "You see that mark doctors say it is a symptom of blood poisoning."

His daughter, Guo Xiaoshuang, 20, was one of the most seriously ill patients and was only out of danger on Friday.

"She is better now. But days ago, her nose bled while in a coma," Guo said.

(Xinhua News Agency, China Daily August 5, 2006)