How social media helped avert deadly pharmacy mistake

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A university student in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu who took away the wrong medicine from a pharmacy after a potentially fatal mistake on Monday was found 15 minutes after the university started searching for him without knowing his name or other vital information.

Chengdu Technological University received a message for help from Beierkang Pharmacy near the campus at around 10 a.m. on Monday. The message said a student from the university who claimed to be allergic to penicillin mistakenly took away some of the related antibiotic cephalosporin, which might have been fatal to him.

Beierkang Pharmacy near Chengdu Technological University /VCG photo

The pharmacy said the young man bought the medicine at 9:21 a.m. He wore an orange jacket and a pair of silver-framed glasses.

The university quickly spread the information. Teachers sent the pharmacy message to every class group in communication apps like QQ. They also instructed whoever the student was not to take the medicine and immediately return to the pharmacy.

Screenshot of the first emergency message sent in a QQ group for teachers /VCG photo

The university’s network management center sent emergency short messages to all the students, informing them about the incident.

The student, eventually identified as having the surname Bu, was found 15 minutes and 26 seconds after the first search message was sent. He had not taken the cephalosporin when he was found.

Bu can be thankful for how ubiquitous instant messaging apps are in China. The country is the world’s largest social network market, according to Statista, and QQ and WeChat are a part of everyday life.