The tragedy that hit dozens of hospitalized people, who died after being administered medical-use fentanyl contaminated with bacteria, continues to unfold. The death toll currently sits at 76 victims according to Buenos Aires province federal judge Ernesto Kreplak, who is leading the investigation. 

Until last week, the official number of victims informed by the health ministry was at 48, while the judiciary had reportedly found a total of 68. However, Kreplak said in an interview on Sunday that his team discovered eight additional victims on Saturday, raising the death toll to 76.

“Not all of them are confirmed. 44 have been confirmed by the Malbrán laboratory, but there are 76 in total as of today,” Kreplak said in an interview with Radio Con Vos on Sunday, adding that the number is “dynamic” and could change at any moment.

“We are organizing our work around assuming the number of victims is much higher, and looking for them.”

The scandal broke in May after a hospital reported the deaths of nine people caused by an infection after being injected with a contaminated batch of fentanyl produced by pharmaceutical company HLB Pharma and its laboratory Laboratorio Ramallo. Argentine food and drug regulator ANMAT ordered all health centers in Argentina to stop using their fentanyl batch, and ordered the companies to halt all production. These measures have remained in place ever since.

Kreplak said that the investigation has had “many developments” in recent weeks regarding finding victims that had not been originally reported to the health system, as well as tracing the remaining vials of contaminated fentanyl that hospitals across the country may still have.

According to the judge, the judiciary is carrying out tests on fentanyl batches across the country to check if they are contaminated, and he said that no contaminated vials are being used that they are aware of. He added that the ANMAT currently does not have the pertaining information regarding the location of the potentially contaminated vials because the product “is not traceable.”

“We are stumbling upon serious sanitary issues,” he lamented.

Kreplak said that, according to the investigation his court is carrying out, two batches of around 150.000 vials each were confirmed to be contaminated with bacteria Klebsiella pneumoniae MBL and Ralstonia Pickettii, while four others that were in circulation did not present issues. While one of the contaminated batches had barely been administered, the other one had “high circulation” and was “vastly administered.” The judge said that an estimated 45.000 vials from that batch were administered to patients.

A key issue is that many institutions have not yet informed victims or infected patients as potentially being affected by the contaminated fentanyl batch, so the judiciary is looking for alternative ways to find those victims. “We know that some institutions bought a significant number of contaminated vials that they currently don’t have in stock. We assume those vials were administered and we insist on receiving more information,” he said.

Kreplak added that, while there is evidence that the batches were already contaminated when they arrived at the hospitals, he is investigating when exactly the contamination happened.

“We need to know exactly how the contamination happened to know who is responsible.”