Brits heading to popular holiday spots 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 along with four other women, including an Australian teenager, who died amid mass poisoning in Laos.
Around a dozen more people are believed to be in hospital after they were allegedly served free “vodka” shots containing the poisonous substance at a bar in Vang Vieng, a popular destination with Western backpackers.
In response to the incident, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is urging Britons to be careful about drinking alcohol in Laos and to be on the lookout for signs of counterfeit alcohol.
Methanol poisoning is a little-known risk present in many parts of the world, where criminal gangs sneak it into replicas of well-known spirit brands that can then be served in bars in the form of cocktails.
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 posed by 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 similar to alcohol but is much cheaper to produce.
But its effects are even more catastrophic.
British Simone White, 28, is an associate lawyer based in London and specializing in intellectual property and technology at the American law firm Squire Patton Boggs, but she is now fighting for her life in hospital.
Bianca Jones, 19, has become the fourth person to die after consuming alleged “methanol” 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 mass methanol poisoning in the party town of Vang Vieng.
When broken down by the body, methanol produces toxic chemicals that actively kill cells, leading to organ damage and sometimes death.
Just one drink of a liquor with methanol is enough to kill.
Symptoms of intoxication begin about 12 hours after consumption and resemble those of consuming too much alcohol, including nausea and vomiting.
Even if treatment is administered quickly, sensitive tissues such as the eyes can suffer irreversible damage, causing permanent blindness or vision loss.
Ms White, from Orpington in Kent, was among a group of backpackers taken to hospital when she fell ill last week in Vang Vieng.
She is a London-based associate lawyer specializing in intellectual property and technology at US law firm Squire Patton Boggs.
Reports have also emerged about two other victims: 19-year-old Australian Bianca Jones, who sadly died, and her friend Holly Bowles, who remains seriously ill in hospital.
Two Danish women in their 20s and a 56-year-old American named Bianca Jones are also known to have died from methanol poisoning in the last month.
In response to the incident, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) urged Britons to be careful about drinking alcohol in Laos.
Hostel manager and bartender Duong Duc Toan (pictured), who served the girls the Laotian vodka, claimed that the Tiger Vodka was not what made them sick.
CCTV footage from inside the villa showed Binaca and Holly being transported to hospital one by one on the back of a motorbike after they were unable to leave their shared room for 24 hours.
An update on its website said Brits should be wary of any spirit-based drinks, particularly those offered for free.
The FCDO said that to minimize the risk, people should only consume drinks in licensed liquor stores, bars and hotels and check the spelling and printing quality of bottle labels for signs of counterfeit products.
It comes a year after a British coroner said the FCDO should do more to warn Britons abroad about the risks of methanol poisoning.
The recommendations were made in a report written after an investigation into the death of Kirsty Margaret McKiel, 38, who died in Bali in 2022 from methanol poisoning after consuming alcohol she believed to be safe.
Coroner Alison Mutch wrote that the issue was a growing problem in parts of Asia, but was due to a lack of awareness of the risk among Britons.
“Methanol is used instead of ethanol in spirits intended for the Western market and is even sold through apparently reputable suppliers,” he said.
“There was little publicity from the UK Government about the risk, in contrast to the approach taken by the Australian Government, which had undertaken a campaign to raise awareness and protect its citizens traveling to areas of Asia such as Bali.”
A response from the FCDO said it would “strengthen its language” on 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 to represent this alongside other risks to British citizens so that we set 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 online an active list of countries where methanol poisoning has been recorded, including Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Costa Rica, Turkey and now Laos.
The UK’s equivalent resource on the risk of methanol poisoning abroad does not mention any specific country.
Instead, Brits should visit a safety information page specific to their destination.
MailOnline contacted the FCDO for further advice or changes it had made to the information on methanol poisoning.
Methanol poisoning is most commonly reported in Asia, although cases are known to occur in destinations most frequently visited by Britons such as Türkiye.
A famous incident in 2011 involved the death of four Russians on a yacht after consuming a bottle of whiskey containing methanol.