In the United States, two-year-old De’Marcus Page died because a doctor omitted a comma in a prescription for a potassium supplement. The case of the child was highlighted by the publication Terra. The boy’s parents went to the doctor because he was constantly crying, had lost his appetite, and was suffering from diarrhea. He was diagnosed with a viral infection and a potassium deficiency. Consequently, the specialist prescribed the toddler a medication to replenish the concentration of potassium in his blood. However, the doctor missed a comma in the prescription, causing the child to take a dose ten times higher than necessary, which led to his death. Page’s relatives blamed not only the prescribing physician for the incident but also his colleagues, who failed to notice the inaccuracy, even though the pharmacy software issued an alert about the possibility of an overdose. Earlier, in Britain, a brain tumor was discovered in a seven-year-old boy. Apprehensions about the illness arose during an eye exam at school.
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