14-yr-old dies after consuming malaria pills

Surat, Sep 6 (UNI) A 14-year-old boy died after consuming excess dosage of malaria pills at a residential school in Rander, near here, today.

According to police, government sanitary inspectors went to a residential school at Rander, near here, to check students as part of malaria eradication campaign.

The inspectors had earlier tested blood samples of 120 boys who stay in the school's hostel. Today, they gave three-day dose of anti-malaria tablets to all students and asked them to take two tablets twice a day. But, one of them, identified as Umang Deepak Rathod, consumed all 12 tablets and fainted thereafter.

He was rushed to a local hospital, but died soon after being admitted.

A case has been registered and sent the body for post-mortem. A sample of the medicines has been sent for forensic laboratory tests, they said, adding, they are trying to establish what prompted the boy to consume the tablets in bulk.

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