Botulism outbreak in Ireland’s heroin users

 Dublin, Ireland has recently seen an outbreak of botulism among heroin users.

According to the Irish Times, The Health Service Executive is looking into the death of one woman yesterday and six possible cases in the last two weeks.

The infection, which is caused by contaminated heroin being injected into soft tissues of the body rather than veins, last occurred in Ireland in 2000 when eight heroin addicts died from heroin that was contaminated with clostridium novyi.