The death toll from the administration of medical-use fentanyl to hospitalized patients has risen to 87, a judicial source confirmed to the Herald. The judiciary is investigating whether nine other victims in Bahía Blanca’s deaths could be linked to the deathly batch, which could raise the count to 96.

The judiciary has pointed to a contaminated batch of the analgesic from last year that was distributed in health centers in the districts of Santa Fe, Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Formosa, and Buenos Aires city.

The court has named 24 suspects who were involved in the manufacture and sale of the opioid. They are prohibited from leaving the country to prevent them from escaping prosecution, and their assets have been frozen.

The investigation started in May, when the first nine people were confirmed to have died of an infection caused by fentanyl produced by pharmaceutical company HLB Pharma and its laboratory Laboratorio Ramallo. 

Since then, La Plata Federal Judge Ernesto Kreplak, from the Buenos Aires province judiciary, has been leading an investigation to trace the full number of victims and those responsible.

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. Last week, a media outlet reported that HLB Pharma had been authorized to purchase certificates to manufacture medicines.

However, ANMAT refuted the article in a communiqué and stressed that the laboratory “cannot carry out any activity related to the manufacture, fractionation, import, export, distribution, or marketing of medical or pharmaceutical products.”

The latest court report, issued on Tuesday, added three deaths at the Evita Interdistrict Hospital in Formosa, one case at the Vélez Sarsfield Clinic in Córdoba, seven at the Santa Fe Diagnostic Institute, and nine at the Regional Español Hospital in Bahía Blanca. However, in the latter case, the court said that additional information was missing due to the recent floods. Despite this, it was confirmed that the deceased patients received treatment in the Intensive Care Unit with contaminated doses of fentanyl.

Now, Kreplak’s court is trying to determine in which part of the manufacturing process the contamination took place. The Malbrán Institute is conducting biochemical, pharmacological, and pharmaceutical analyses on samples of the contaminated batch. The court is also correlating information with previous alerts on other batches to determine whether the contamination was negligent or intentional. 

“If there is knowledge of the risks, say, of previous defects, and despite that, they continued [to manufacture fentanyl], we are close to malice,” a judicial source added.