A new case of Krokodil has been confirmed in western Mexico as authorities announced that a Houston-based teen was treated for the side effects of the ‘poor man’s heroin’ while on a trip south of the border.
Doctors first thought that the 17-year-old was suffering from a sexually transmitted disease because the street drug had ruined her genitals.
'It wasn't sexually transmitted. She said she'd been using Krokodil for the last two months,' José Sotero Ruiz Hernández of Mexico's National Institute of Migration told local paper El Periodico Correo.
Spreading: Officials in Puerto Vallarta feared that the 17-year-old girl who was treated for Krokodil obtained the drug in Mexico but it turns out she is from Houston, Texas and had been injecting the 'poor man's heroin' for two months prior
'The young woman who used this drug had an infection that had rotted her genitals.'
The victim has not been named and her status is unknown as she never returned to the clinic for a second check in.
The head of the council on addictions in the western state of Jalisco, Dr. Enrico Sotelo, said young woman is a resident of Houston, Texas and not Mexico.
She came to Mexico to visit the Pacific coast resort city of Puerto Vallarta where she has relatives, in November.
Other victim: The drug was first found in Russia where many- including blind victim Margarita Schelkunova, pictured- came forward after receiving treatment for the drug in Siberia after using it for seven years
Flesh eating: There had been fears that flesh eating drug Krokodil was being used in Ohio. Angie Neitzel, 29 a drug addict, in Joliet, Illinois shows her wound from the drug
Soon after, she checked into a local health clinic for digestive problems, and it was there that doctors detected the flesh lesions.
Dr Sotelo, who did not reveal the patient's name in accordance with privacy guidelines, said she told authorities she used the drug in Houston.
Wounds: Krokidil causes terrible weeping sores and its use has been spreading across America
'She acquired this problem with Krokodil in Houston, not here in Puerto Vallarta,' said Sotelo, who in any case has implemented an educational program to warn about the drug's ill effects.
Sotelo said a survey of rehab centers and clinics in Jalisco had revealed there were no other local cases.
He said so far, Mexico has detected only two probable cases, the woman in Puerto Vallarta and another person in the border state of Baja California. Diagnosis is usually based on the tell-tale lesions, because the body quickly metabolizes the drug's psychoactive agent, desomorphine.
The drug was dubbed 'krokodil' in Russia because of greenish, scaly skin lesions addicts develop, giving them the appearance of having crocodile skin.
A home-brewed heroin substitute popular in Russia, Krokodil is often concocted by cooking the prescription painkiller codeine along with gasoline, iodine, phosphorus and other chemicals.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2532996/First-confirmed-case-Krokodil-Mexico-17-year-old-Houston-treated-addiction-poor-mans-heroin-doctors-thought-STD-rotted-genitals.html#ixzz2pIsU8CgJ
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