Britons heading to popular holiday destinations in South East Asia have been warned about the dangers of drinking alcohol abroad, following a spate of methanol poisonings.
British lawyer Simone White, 28, is currently fighting for her life in hospital with four other women, including an Australian teenager, who died in a mass poisoning in Laos.
About a dozen people are still believed to be in hospital after allegedly being given free ‘vodka’ shots laced with the toxic substance at a bar in Vang Vieng, a popular destination among Western backpackers.
In response to the incident, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is urging Britons to be cautious when drinking in Laos and to look out for signs of counterfeit liquor.
Methanol poisoning is a little-known risk present in many parts of the world as criminal gangs smuggle in replicas of well-known brands of spirits, which can then be served in cocktails in bars.
The recent spate of deaths and critical injuries comes a year after a coroner warned that the British government was not doing enough to warn travelers about the risk of contaminated alcoholic drinks following the death of a British woman in Indonesia.
Methanol, like the ethanol we consume in beer, wine and spirits, is a colorless liquid that smells like booze, but is much cheaper to produce.
But its consequences are even more catastrophic.
Brit Simone White, 28, is a lawyer based in London who specializes in intellectual property and technology at US law firm Squire Patton Boggs – but is now fighting for her life in hospital
Bianca Jones, 19, has become the fourth person to die after consuming so-called ‘methanol-laced’ drinks in Vang Vieng, Laos
Ms Jones and her best friend Holly Bowles (pictured) are two of 14 tourists believed to have been victims of a mass methanol poisoning in the party town of Vang Vieng.
When methanol is broken down by the body, it creates toxic chemicals that actively kill cells, leading to organ damage and sometimes death.
Just one shot of a methanol-laced alcohol is enough to kill.
Symptoms of poisoning begin about 12 hours after consumption and are similar to consuming too much alcohol, including nausea and vomiting.
Even if treatment is done quickly, sensitive tissues such as the eyes can be irreversibly damaged, leading to permanent blindness or vision loss.
Mrs White, from Orpington in Kent, was among a group of backpackers taken to hospital when she fell ill in Vang Vieng last week.
She is a lawyer based in London specializing in intellectual property and technology at the US law firm Squire Patton Boggs.
Reports have also emerged of two more victims: 19-year-old Australian Bianca Jones who sadly died, and her friend Holly Bowles, who remains seriously ill in hospital.
It is also known that two Danish women in their twenties and a 56-year-old American named Bianca Jones have died in the past month from the aftermath of the methanol poisoning.
In response to the incident, the British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has urged the British to be cautious about alcohol consumption in Laos.
Hostel manager and bartender Duong Duc Toan (pictured), who served the girls the Laotian vodka, claims the Tiger Vodka did not make them sick
CCTV footage from the villa showed Binaca and Holly being taken to hospital one by one on the back of a motorbike after not leaving their shared room for 24 hours.
An update on the website said Brits should take care of any spirits-based drinks offered for free.
The FCDO said that to minimize the risk, people should only consume drinks from licensed liquor stores, bars and hotels and should check the spelling and print quality of bottle labels for signs of counterfeit products.
It comes a year after a British coroner said the FCDO must do more to warn Britons abroad of the risks of methanol poisoning.
The recommendations were made in a report written after an inquest into the death of Kirsty Margaret McKiel, 38, who died in Bali in 2022 from methanol poisoning after consuming alcohol she thought was safe.
Coroner Alison Mutch wrote that the issue was a growing problem in parts of Asia, but there was a lack of knowledge of the risk among the British.
“Methanol is used in place of ethanol in spirits aimed at the Western market and even sold through apparently reputable suppliers,” she said.
‘There was little publicity by the UK government about the risk, in contrast to the approach of the Australian government, which had undertaken a campaign to raise awareness to protect their citizens traveling in areas of Asia such as Bali.’
A response from the FCDO said it would “strengthen its language” around the risk of methanol poisoning in Indonesia and “consider” whether it was necessary to reflect the risk of methanol poisoning in other countries.
“We will consider how we can represent this alongside other risks to UK nationals so that we set out all relevant risks proportionately,” the response said.
The FCDO said it would also work with student ambassadors to warn young people about the risks of methanol poisoning abroad in general.
The Australian government publishes an active list online of countries where methanol poisoning has been recorded, including Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Costa Rica, Turkey and now Laos.
The UK equivalent source of information on the risk of methanol poisoning abroad does not list specific countries.
Instead, Brits should visit a specific safety information page for their destination.
MailOnline contacted the FCDO for further advice or changes to the information on methanol poisoning.
Methanol poisoning is most commonly reported in Asia, although cases are known to occur in destinations more commonly visited by Britons, such as Turkey.
A famous incident from 2011 involved the death of four Russians on a yacht after consuming a whiskey bottle laced with methanol.