By Jesse
A sad story of a woman and her three children who turned blind in Ahero, Kisum county has inundated social media.
The woman and her children have been stigmatized for what is thought to be a curse. Even the Githerimedia is reporting it as a mystery.
This is however not a mystery, the woman and her children prolly suffered chemical poisoning: either methanol or chlorine poisoning.
Methanol poisoning could have resulted from consumption of illicit brew of ethanol adultered with methanol. Methanol is metabolized into formaldehyde which is toxic to the optic nerves and hence retinopathy.
The antidote of methanol poisoning is ethanol. Ethanol competitively inhibits the digestion of methanol to its toxic metabolites by binding to alcohol dehydrogenase.
The other possible poisoning could have been chlorine poisoning. This time through consumption but by direct contact of a chlorine based household cleaner with the eyes or maybe a chlorine gas.
