A fourth child died at the Beni Suef Fever Hospital on Monday after she was given a rehydration solution that caused her to have an acute intestinal infection, according to the child's family.
Rahma Ali was nine months old, medical sources told Al-Masry Al-Youm.
Undersecretary of the Health Ministry Alaa Ezzat denied that the four children died as a result of the rehydration solution, despite the fact that each child had been given the solution at some period while under the hospital's care.
Another child, one-year-old Malek Abdel Aziz Mohamed, succombed to his illness on Sunday and was the third child to die at the Beni Suef Fever Hospital after he was given a rehydration solution that also led to an acute intestinal infection.
The child was going to be transferred to the Cairo hospital but died before the ambulance left the hospital. Eight-month-old Marwa Ahmed Gomaa and 11-month-old Mahmoud Sayed Kotb were the two other child victims.
Gomaa died as a result of a virus in the brain, while the other two children suffered from acute intestinal infections, said Undersecretary of the Health Ministry Alaa Ezzat.
The Beni Suef Health Directorate sent the childrens' vomit and stool samples for analysis at labs within the Health Ministry and the Center for Toxicology and Forensic Medicine at the Justice Ministry and has stopped the use of the rehydration solution in Beni Suef hospitals, Ezzat said.
Beni Suef's governor expressed his condolences to Gomaa's father and promised an investigation into the incident.
Gomaa claimed his daughter died because she had been injected with the rehydration solution, not because of the virus.
"I want my daughter's rights," he added.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
