Via guardian.co.uk -
An American woman and her daughter, both of whom fell ill mysteriously during a trip to Russia last month, had been poisoned with thallium, hospital officials revealed yesterday.
The deadly metal is the same substance originally blamed for the poisoning in London of former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko.
Marina Kovalenskaya, 48, and her daughter Yana, 25, flew to Moscow last month from their home in Los Angeles for a family wedding. They fell ill in the early hours of February 24.
The women were taken to the American medical centre from their hotel and later transferred by ambulance to the Sklifosovsky clinic, the city's top emergency hospital. Doctors were initially baffled as to the cause of their illness.
Russia's consumer watchdog agency confirmed yesterday that they had thallium poisoning.
British doctors initially thought thallium was responsible for the poisoning of Mr Litvinenko. A few hours before his death last November they discovered that he had ingested the rare radioactive isotope polonium-210, which destroyed his immune system.
Yesterday Moscow police said they had opened a criminal investigation. They had few leads but were making inquiries amongst the mother and daughter's friends and acquaintances.
No comments:
Post a Comment