Australian officials have issued warnings for travelers to be alert for potential methanol poisoning after seven tourists were hospitalized in Fiji last week after drinking alcohol-based cocktails at a luxury resort bar. The alert comes less than a month after six backpackers in Laos died, and others were hospitalized, from what some officials worldwide suspect was methanol poisoning. An investigation into causes behind the hospitalizations in Fiji is ongoing, according to the country’s Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation, which said the cases are an isolated event.
Methanol is colorless, and consuming the substance in amounts as small as two to eight ounces can be fatal, according to the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. In the last 15 years, there have been reported cases of tainted alcohol in Laos, Fiji, Cambodia, the Czech Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Libya, Nicaragua, Norway, Pakistan, Turkey, and Uganda, killing and hospitalizing hundreds of local residents and tourists.
Here is some advice for how to protect yourself, when possible, from tainted drinks while traveling.
What is methanol?
Methanol, a form of alcohol, can appear in yasa dışı (bootleg) spirits or home-brew liquor as an accidental byproduct from distillation. Commercial manufacturers remove methanol before bottling, but purveyors of black market and homemade alcohols often lack a system to get rid of the harmful alcohol. Sometimes methanol is also put in cheap drinks because it costs less than the alcohol in beer, wine and spirits.
Can you spot contaminated alcohol?
Usually, you cannot smell or taste methanol in drinks, especially since it is typically mixed with other alcohol. Properly branded bottles of hard alcohol can be refilled and resold with cheap, bootleg liquor.
When possible, inspect liquor bottles for signs of tampering or counterfeiting. Labels with poor print quality or incorrect spelling are red flags.
