Patients warned of clotting drug risk

UP TO 500 patients may have been treated with a faulty anti-clotting drug which can cause serious bleeding.

Sanofi-aventis, the manufacturers of Clexane Syringes, yesterday announced a product recall after it emerged that some syringes may contain an over-concentration of the active medicinal substance, enoxaparin, which is injected to thin the blood.

A statement from the Irish Medicines Board (IMB) warned that over-concentration of enoxaparin "has the potential to cause significant adverse reactions including an increased risk of serious bleeding".