According to Vanguard, the Rivers State Ministry of Health, has confirmed 38 people dead across the state as a result of the consumption of the illicit local gin, popularly referred to as ‘ogogoro‘.
The health ministry said ten of the eleven persons that took the gin in Obio-Akpor area died, in Bonny area, seventeen out of eighteen died while in Gokhana Local Government Area, eleven out of thirteen persons died, according to the report.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, Somieari Isaac Harry also refuted earlier rumors that the victims death was as a result of eating dog meat, stressing that no case of dog meat was attached in the same incident at Bonny and Gokhana.
He therefore called on the residents of Port Harcourt to resist from taking illicit gin for the moment, pending when the supply of the bad gin will be totally wiped out from the state since there are currently no measures to differentiate between the original gin from the one produced from etarnor.