{"id":229971,"date":"2025-10-21T13:01:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T13:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/229971\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T13:01:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T13:01:08","slug":"queensland-police-called-in-to-investigate-after-five-people-hospitalised-from-rat-poison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/229971\/","title":{"rendered":"Queensland police called in to investigate after five people hospitalised from rat poison"},"content":{"rendered":"

Queensland police have been called in to investigate a cluster of rat poisoning cases in the state’s south-east, as a public health probe has yet to identify the source.<\/p>\n

Five people, including one child, from Logan were hospitalised last week with symptoms consistent with brodifacoum toxicity.<\/p>\n

Brodifacoum is a common active ingredient in rat poison. It thins the blood by interfering with vitamin K, which is essential for clotting.<\/p>\n

Queensland Health Minister Tim Nicholls on Tuesday said the five patients were from three different unconnected families from the Logan area.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All five are now at home and recovering well, he said.<\/p>\n

The state’s chief health officer Catherine McDougall said two of the five patients had spent a couple of days in hospital after presenting with symptoms of blood in the urine or joint swelling.<\/p>\n

Dr McDougall said the three others had very minor symptoms.<\/p>\n

An internal warning was issued on Friday to hospitals and clinicians, after the five people presented to three separate hospitals across the state’s south-east.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

Dr Catherine McDougall spoke to reporters on Tuesday. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

Coincidence ‘unlikely’<\/p>\n

Dr McDougall said it was not unusual for police to assist with Queensland Health investigations.<\/p>\n

“It’s not been deemed as suspicious, but it’s important that we’re considering all options and police are experts in this space,” Dr McDougall said.<\/p>\n

Patients at centre of suspected rat poisoning cluster from same city<\/a><\/p>\n

South-east Queensland authorities are continuing to investigate the source of the cluster, with contact tracing underway.<\/p>\n

She said despite numerous inquiries and contact tracing, the source of the cluster had yet to be identified.<\/p>\n

“What this investigation involved is interviewing the families to try and understand where they’ve been, where they’ve eaten, what any connection might be between the different families,” Dr McDougall told reporters on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

“It involves going to their homes, reviewing their pantry, finding things to test and see if we can actually determine a source.”<\/p>\n

When asked whether it was possible the patients were not linked, Dr McDougall said it was “unlikely.”<\/p>\n

“A coincidence is unlikely given how rare it is, and certainly the toxicology links them together. So, what we’re finding in the blood tests is the same in all five people.”<\/p>\n

No additional patients have been identified so far, but authorities have urged people to be alert, not alarmed, for symptoms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Early symptoms include bruising easily and bleeding from the gums and nose, but if left untreated, brodifacoum toxicity can lead to more complications, including internal bleeding.<\/p>\n

For children, symptoms can be more severe.<\/p>\n

Queensland police said they are working with health officials with the view of conducting an investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Queensland police have been called in to investigate a cluster of rat poisoning cases in the state’s south-east,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,138820,4082,5315,33678,44,1158,1836,94,701,53298],"class_list":["post-229971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cluster","tag-hospital","tag-investigation","tag-logan","tag-news","tag-police","tag-public-health","tag-qld","tag-queensland","tag-rat-poison"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}