A BRIT lawyer has died after apparently being poisoned by a drink laced with methanol while holidaying in Laos.
Simone White, 28, from Orpington, Kent, is the fifth tourist to have horrifically died after falling ill last week – just hours after the 19-year-old Australian Bianca Jones died.
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At least seven others including other Brit holidaymakers were hospitalised.
An Australian teenager, two Danish women in their twenties and an American are also those reported to have died after the incident in Vang Vieng.
Meanwhile a dozen others are thought to have been left seriously unwell.
It comes after Bianca Jones, 19, was rushed to hospital on November 13 in neighbouring Thailand after falling ill in Vang Vieng – a town popular with foreign backpackers.
The teen, from Melbourne, Australia, died on Thursday.
A Thai police official told Reuters: “The physician who examined her said the cause of death was a methanol poisoning, from fake liquor.
“The amount of methanol in her body was high, leading to swelling of the brain.”
Governments in Australia and Britain have previously warned travellers to be careful of alcoholic drinks in Laos.
Methanol is a toxic alcohol that is used industrially as a solvent, pesticide, and fuel source, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says on its website.
Brit Simone’s friend Bethany Clarke raised the alarm with an urgent warning on the Laos Backpacking Facebook group.
She wrote: “Urgent — please avoid all local spirits. Our group stayed in Vang Vieng and we drank free shots offered by one of the bars.
“Just avoid them as so not worth it. Six of us who drank from the same place are in hospital currently with methanol poisoning.”
Bethany added that she was “very fatigued and then fainted, then just felt nauseous and then my liver started to shut down”.
She continued: “I got to the private hospital in time but underwent many infusions and tablets and days of recovery.”
The hostel manager, Duong Duc Toan, confirmed more than 100 guests were plied with free shots of Lao Tiger vodka, mixed with ice and Coke Zero.
He said the alcohol was from a certified distributor and not tampered with by his staff.
“Right now the police [are telling] every hostel and hotel and bar to stop selling drinks in Vang Vieng,” he told the Associated Press.
Toan told the Australian broadcaster ABC: “The police in Vang Vieng and [the capital] Vientiane already came to the hostel to check, the shop [where] we buy the vodka, check the shop [where] we buy the whisky.
“We don’t do anything wrong, for sure. I really take care of all of the customers [who] stay with our hotel and our hostel.”
Laos police have launched a probe into the alleged poisoning.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said: “We are providing consular assistance to British nationals and their families and are in contact with the local authorities following an incident in Laos.”
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