Algae was found in a bottle of saline at the government hospital at Beed in Maharashtra, the authorities said on 29th January.

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 Surgeon Dr. 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.