Beed, Jan 29 (PTI) Algae was found in a bottle of saline at the government hospital at Beed in Maharashtra, the authorities said on Wednesday.

A hospital official said that a staff nurse notied pieces of algae in the saline bottle just before it was to be administered to a patient through intravenous injection.

Saline bottles used at the hospital had been purchased by the state government's health department from a company based at Kalol in Gandhinagar district, he said.

The expiry date on the bottle was September 20, he added.

A doctor working at the hospital said that had the saline been given to the patient, it could have caused a fatal fungal infection.

District Civil SurgeonDr Ashok Thorat said 23 bottles of the batch from where the contaminated bottle came had been handed over to Food and Drug Administration officials for examination and further inquiry.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)