SINGAPORE : Consumption of illegal health products has claimed another victim. The Health Sciences Authority (HSA) on Friday said a patient from an earlier case died last week, bringing the number of fatalities to two this year.

The latest fatality was a 50-year-old man who was admitted to hospital in early April in a comatose state. He regained partial consciousness, but succumbed to complications following an infection.

HSA continues to receive new cases of serious adverse reactions to illegal health products.

Since its last update on April 11, HSA has received reports of another 16 new cases of serious adverse reactions associated with the consumption of illegal health products with sexual enhancement claims. Of these, two patients are in a coma.

The other serious case involves a patient who has extensive neurological damage, caused by very low blood sugar in the brain, leading to memory loss.

There are now a total of 35 confirmed cases of men falling gravely ill after taking such illegal health products.

There are also another 70 suspected cases, but authorities cannot establish a direct link to a product, since the patients involved are reluctant to provide information on what they had consumed.

The patients are all males, aged between 21 and 97.

HSA added that the illegal health products are commonly adulterated with potent Western drugs.

In the two fatal cases, the potent component was an anti-diabetic drug called glibenclamide.

HSA said what is disturbing is how patients continue to take the illegal products because they had not experienced any ill effects before.

But HSA stressed that illegal health products from dubious sources are all potentially dangerous.

They are manufactured with no quality control and may contain variable amounts of ingredients, wrong ingredients or even toxic substances. Contents can also vary significantly from batch to batch.

So HSA has advised the public not to buy or consume any illegal health products from dubious sources, such as peddlers at makeshift stalls and locations, including hawker centres, coffee shops and back alleys, or even ordering through the internet.

If they have bought such products, they are advised to throw them away.

Members of the public who know of any suspicious sales of illegal health products can contact the HSA by telephone at its 24-hour hotline: 6866 3485, or via email (hsa_is@hsa.gov.sg) - CNA/ms