Health Minister admits children were overdosed on iodine in Namangan

“The reason for the poisoning of children in Namangan was the consumption of iodine in a high dose,” Health Minister Amrillo Inoyatov said at the session of the Legislative Chamber of Oliy Majlis.

In his report to the Senate, Inoyatov talked about the Doc-1 Max case and also touched upon the incident of mass poisoning of children in Namangan.

“Let’s take the recent Antistrumin case. The ministry admits that it was due to an overdose. All responsible people involved in this incident are now being held accountable before the law.

As the Minister of Health, I will personally take all the responsibility to prevent such incidents from happening in the future. We have started a systematic approach because there are too many shortcomings and problems in the system,” said Amrillo Inoyatov.

Antistrumin case

From September 20, work on providing children with iodine under the "Bright Nation" program began in Uzbekistan. It was envisaged that iodine preparations would be provided free of charge to all children from 3 to 15 years old through the system of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Preschool and School Education.

On September 21, it was reported that symptoms of fever, vomiting, and abdominal pain were observed among some children of kindergarten in the Chust district of Namangan region. According to the initial complaint, 5 children were brought to the hospital. Then a total of 71 children's health complaints were recorded and they were quickly admitted to the hospital.

Later it became known that 450 children were infected in Namangan. After that, the consumption of iodine distributed to schools and kindergartens was stopped, and a criminal case was initiated under Article 257-1 of the Criminal Code (violation of sanitary legislation or anti-epidemic regulations).