Fate of kiwi drugs trial victim still unknown

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs remains in the dark about the New Zealand man caught up in a British drugs trial disaster.

He was one of six men who suffered multiple organ failure after volunteering to be human guinea pigs at Northwick Park hospital for tests of a drug designed to treat rheumatoid arthritis, leukaemia and multiple sclerosis.

Four of them have now been deemed well enough to leave hospital.

A Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman says she has been in touch with the hospital but has not been able to find out if the New Zealander is one of those who have been released.

Of the two men who remain in hospital one is said to be making good progress, but the other is still in intensive care.

One of the men who has now been released has told a British newspaper about his ordeal. Nav Modi said a short time after being injected with the drug, it felt as if "a truck had been parked on his head" as it ballooned to twice its normal size.

He told The Sun he felt his head swelling up like an elephant's, and thought his eyeballs were going to pop out.

Mr Modi says a nurse told him that he was so seriously ill he might die.

- NEWSTALK ZB