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Authorities confirmed late Wednesday that a couple, identified in British media as Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess, was being treated for exposure to Novichok, a highly toxic nerve agent secretly developed by the Union. Soviet
. in critical condition after being transported Saturday to the Salisbury District Hospital, the same hospital that treated the former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia who were poisoned in March
Police says that they do not believe that Rowley and Sturgess were deliberately targeted. , in contrast to the Skripals that the British authorities suspected of being the victims of a Russian conspiracy.
British Interior Minister Sajid Javid will chair an emergency meeting on Thursday to discuss the incident. Prime Minister Theresa May was made aware of the situation, her office told CNN
Rowley and Sturgess live in Amesbury, a city under 10,000 people about 20 minutes drive from Salisbury where the Skripals were poisoned.
The authorities did not name the two but described them as British nationals working in the area.
EMTs were called to an address on Muggleton Road, Amesbury, at 10:15 am Saturday, after a woman, later identified as Sturgess, collapsed, according to Neil Basu, deputy commissioner for the counter -terrorism at the London Metropolitan Police.
They were recalled later the same day when the man, now known to be Rowley, had also fallen ill.
The couple made a round trip to Salisbury from Amesbury on Friday, according to his family and friends who spoke to the British media. Authorities said that upon their arrival in Salisbury, they had visited none of the decontaminated sites as part of the Skripal case
Doctors initially thought that they had been exposed to a lot of cocaine or contaminated heroin. However, concerns about their symptoms prompted medical authorities to consider Novichok as a serious possibility.
Basu said the authorities received test results on Wednesday night that confirmed that the couple had been exposed in Novichok.
What is the link with the Skripal case?
Beyond the fact that the four individuals were exposed to the same neurotoxic agent, it is unclear whether there is a link between the cases. and Yulia Skripal were found slumped on a bench in Salisbury in March. Authorities believed to have been exposed to Novichok at Sergei Skripal's house. The March incident in Salisbury sparked a diplomatic conflict between the United Kingdom and Russia after British investigators and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) were indicted for Moscow for the first time. 39; attack.
Rowley and Sturgess do not seem to have a relationship with Moscow
The authorities stated that there was no evidence that both were specifically targeted. They have been described as normal local residents with no connection to Russia.
Basu stated that the police were not in a position to say whether Rowley and Sturgess were exposed to the same Novichok lot as the Skripals.
He said the authorities were looking into whether the two investigations were related. [19659002
What are the authorities doing?
The priority, according to Basu, is to establish how Rowley and Sturgess came into contact with Novichok.
The police cordoned off a number of sites that the previous two fell ill as a precautionary measure.
Constable Paul Mills, Deputy Chief of the Wiltshire Police, listed five places the couple reportedly visited and were stranded: Amesbury Baptist Church; a Boots pharmacy in Amesbury; The gardens of Queen Elizabeth at Salisbury; the John Baker House in Salisbury, a supportive housing center; The authorities did not say when the victims visited each location, but church secretary Ray Collins told CNN that he believed the couple had attended a family day of celebration. in the church Saturday, although he did not know who
What is novichok?
Nerve agents kill by affecting the nervous system in a variety of ways.
It was first developed in secret by the Soviet Union during the Cold War in the 1980s, as a way of countering the American chemical defenses, but was revealed to the world by the United States. former Soviet Union. The scientist and whistleblower Vil Mirzayanov
Mirzayanov told CNN Novichok is up to 10 times more powerful than VX, the weapon used to kill Kim Jong Un's half-brother, Kim Jong Nam, in 2017
CNN's Samantha Beech, Emanuella Grinberg, Isaac Lindsay, Seb Shukla, Steve George, Hilary McGann and Simon Cullen contributed to this report.
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