Three patients have been discharged after botulism poisoning linked to the Fiesta Latina in Monserrato . They left Brotzu Hospital, where they had been admitted to the Neurology department in the days following the ingestion of guacamole at a Mexican stand.

While this is the good news, and the time that has passed suggests the numbers cannot increase, the conditions of the other poisoned patients have not improved—or worsened, either. The 11-year-old boy who was transferred by helicopter to the Gemelli Hospital in Rome is serious but stable; he remains in pediatric intensive care. The course of the infection and its consequences are still being assessed.

Another partygoer remains in the Neurology ward in Piazzale Ricchi, while a 38-year-old woman remains in intensive care in the same hospital.

There are two patients, both in intensive care at the Policlinico: a 14-year-old girl, who is conscious, and a 62-year-old woman who requires mechanical respiration.

Meanwhile, the results of the analyses by the National Institute of Health on the guacamole samples seized in Porto Frailis, in Ogliastra, where the Fiesta Latina caravan had traveled , are expected in the next few hours. The doctors who treated the patients are certain, but official confirmation of botulism as the cause of the poisoning will only come then.

The tests will most likely be negative. Because, as Maurizio Mereu, lawyer for Cristian Gustavo Vincenti, owner of the kiosk that served the contaminated goods and the only suspect , explained, the "incriminating" batch of salsa had been sold out during the Monserrato stop.

Enrico Fresu

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