Ondo records 48 dead after a local drink tested for methanol

Ondo State health authorities said on Thursday that 48 people have died and 182 people have reached clinics after drinking a locally made alcoholic mix that tests suggest contained methanol.

Commissioner for Health Banji Ajaka put the figures as of 16 September. The first cluster was in Odigbo local government area. Irele has become a second focus, with cases in Idogun and Gbogunron. Ajaka said urine samples from patients point to methanol, a toxic alcohol used in industry and not meant for drinking.

Some local reports on Wednesday used 49 dead and about 170 cases. Ajaka's Thursday briefing to Xinhua and other outlets settled on 48 and 182. The count has moved several times since the first deaths were logged after gatherings in early September.

Monkey Tail and the naming ceremonies

Residents told the Associated Press they suspect a high-alcohol herbal drink sold as Monkey Tail. A trader in Odigbo, speaking without his name, said there is a version people treat as safe and another version that is not. Ajaka said some of the Odigbo deaths followed drinks served at naming ceremonies in New Town, Odole, Okele, Orita Odigbo, Araromi-Obu and Oniparaga. At one ceremony an outsider brought the liquor.

Sola Adebayo, 32, told TVC News from a hospital bed that he took two shots on a Friday and could not see on Saturday. Vision loss is a known effect of methanol.

The state has banned sale and distribution of unverified alcoholic drinks. Sellers have continued in some markets anyway. Most of those who drank the mix, officials said, were young.

The police file

Ondo police spokesman Abayomi Jimoh said 15 people are in custody. One of them is Oloruntoba Babatunde, known as Meko, who police say was involved in producing a substance suspected to contain methanol. Officers say they seized material and sent it for forensic tests.

The World Health Organization, Nigeria's National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, and state teams are part of the inquiry. Ajaka said the source of the methanol in the two Irele communities is still being traced.

Why this keeps happening

Cheap local spirits are common in rural southern Nigeria because factory beer and regulated gin cost more. Methanol is cheaper than ethanol and can be mixed in by accident or to raise the kick. Outbreaks of this kind have hit several Nigerian states in the past decade. Each one follows the same pattern: a cluster after a ceremony or a weekend, delayed hospital arrival, blindness in survivors, and a police hunt for a blender.

The useful numbers from Thursday are the ones that will drive the next week of work: 48 dead, 182 at clinics, 15 arrested, two local government areas, and a forensic lab still to confirm the seized liquid. Until that lab result is public, the official language stays at suspected methanol. The clinical picture, the urine tests and the drink economy in Odigbo and Irele already point in one direction.