A man in Arizona has died and his wife is in critical condition after drinking a small amount of a chloroquine phosphate product in hopes of preventing a coronavirus infection. Instead of the drug form of chloroquine phosphate, the couple ingested a chloroquine phosphate product that’s used to treat parasites in fish.
“We were afraid of getting sick,” she told NBC News. The woman, age 61, and her husband, 68, were healthy and had no underlying conditions, but they were worried about catching the virus. She had recognized the name “chloroquine” when she heard Trump say it because she had used it to treat her Koi fish.
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They each mixed 1 teaspoon of the chloroquine phosphate with soda. Within 20 minutes, the woman began vomiting and her husband had trouble breathing. The woman called paramedics, and the couple were admitted to a Banner Health hospital.
The couple, in their 60s, are not the first to accidentally poison themselves after hearing Trump’s statements. Just a day after Trump’s press conference, Nigeria reported multiple poisonings from people who attempted to treat themselves with chloroquine and overdosed on the drug. In those cases, they were taking the actual human drug formulation