Wiltshire incident: two critical after ‘exposure to unknown substance’

Police in Wiltshire have declared a major incident after two people were suspected of being exposed to an unknown substance.

A man and woman, both in their 40s, are in a critical condition at Salisbury District Hospital after being found unconscious in a property in Amesbury on Saturday evening.

The town is roughly eight miles from Salisbury, where former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with the nerve agent novichok in March.

Officers initially believed the pair in Amesbury fell ill “after using heroin or crack cocaine from a contaminated batch of drugs”, Sky News reports.

However, Wiltshire police said in a statement, “further testing is now ongoing to establish the substance which led to these patients becoming ill”.

It continued: “We are keeping an open mind as to the circumstances surrounding this incident. At this stage it is not yet clear if a crime has been committed.”

As a precaution, a cordon has been erected around arious locations the pair are thought to have visited in Amesbury and Salisbury.

Public Health England has said it did not believe there to be a “significant health risk” to the wider public, although its advice was being reviewed.

Officials at Salisbury District Hospital have advised people to attend routine appointments unless they are contacted with instructions to do otherwise.