A European wide alert in relation to admission to hospitals in Glasgow of 20 injecting drug users in the two weeks ending 15 May was issued through the National Disease Surveillance Centre in Dublin to the departments of public health in health boards. Nine of the 20 people died and others were admitted to intensive care units. The illnesses that were caused appeared to be related to injecting heroin into tissues which caused severe damage, with a rapid deterioration in health over a number of days, which developed into a septic shock syndrome.