ISTANBUL:
The death toll from people drinking tainted alcohol rose to 37 in Istanbul, the governor's office said on Monday.
“Thirty-seven people died and 17 others are still receiving treatment,” the governor’s office said over a six-week period.
A total of 77 people have been poisoned since November 1st, 23 of whom have been treated and released, it said.
On December 4, Turkish media reported that 17 people had died in Istanbul from consuming tainted alcohol, while 22 others were being treated in hospital.
It is believed that alcohol contaminated with methanol is the cause. Methanol is a toxic substance that can be added to alcohol to increase its effectiveness but can cause blindness, liver damage and death.
Poisoning from adulterated alcohol is widespread in Turkey, where private production has exploded as authorities increased taxes on alcoholic drinks.
The most commonly counterfeited product is Raki, Turkey's anise-flavored national drink, whose price has risen to around 1,300 lira ($37.20) per liter in supermarkets.
The minimum wage in Turkey is 17,000 lira ($489) per month. Authorities also fined 32 companies for supplying counterfeit alcohol, fining them a total of 2.6 million Turkish lira ($76,200).
The governor's office said police arrested 14 people in connection with the supply of tainted alcohol and seized 14,701 bottles of suspected alcohol. Turkey's authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is accused of Islamizing society in the officially secular state, has frequently criticized the consumption of alcohol and tobacco.
At the end of 2021, at least 25 people died in several regions within a few days. A year earlier, around 40 people died of alcohol poisoning.
