The Min­istry of Health (MoH), via its Chem­istry, Food and Drugs Di­vi­sion, is ad­vis­ing the pub­lic of the vol­un­tary re­call of Lot 10101 of Sys­tane Lu­bri­cant Eye Drops Ul­tra PF, Sin­gle Vials On-the-Go.

Sys­tane Lu­bri­cant Eye Drops is used for the tem­po­rary re­lief of burn­ing and ir­ri­ta­tion in per­sons ex­pe­ri­enc­ing dry eye symp­toms.

In its ad­vi­so­ry, the Health Min­istry ex­plains that the re­call was is­sued by Al­con Lab­o­ra­to­ries and fol­lows a re­port of for­eign ma­te­r­i­al found in a sealed sin­gle-use vial, which was de­ter­mined to be fun­gal in na­ture.

“Fun­gal con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of an oph­thalmic prod­uct is known to po­ten­tial­ly cause eye in­fec­tions,” said an of­fi­cial state­ment is­sued by Al­con Lab­o­ra­to­ries.

“If an in­fec­tion oc­curs, it may be vi­sion-threat­en­ing, and in very rare cas­es po­ten­tial­ly life-threat­en­ing in im­muno­com­pro­mised pa­tients,” the com­pa­ny said.

The Health Min­istry notes that to date, Al­con Lab­o­ra­to­ries has not re­ceived any re­ports of ad­verse events re­lat­ed to this re­call. It al­so points out that the lo­cal dis­trib­u­tor of the eye drops has con­firmed that none of the af­fect­ed prod­ucts—pre­sen­ta­tion and lots—were im­port­ed in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The Min­istry is ad­vis­ing per­sons who may be in pos­ses­sion of the iden­ti­fied batch of Sys­tane Lu­bri­cant Eye Drops—name­ly, Lot 10101—to dis­con­tin­ue use im­me­di­ate­ly, and to re­turn the prod­uct to the place of pur­chase where pos­si­ble.

“The Min­istry of Health will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion and ad­vise the pop­u­la­tion as nec­es­sary,” the bul­letin as­sured.

For more in­for­ma­tion, the pub­lic is en­cour­aged to con­tact the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of the Chem­istry, Food and Drugs Di­vi­sion via email, at cfdd@health.gov.tt, or via phone at 217-4664 Ext. 13101.