The controversial painkiller is being cited in a growing number of deaths in Spain despite warnings about dangerous side-effects

On an October evening last year, Summer Moses stood at her partner’s bedside in the intensive care unit of a hospital in Spain and agreed the life support systems could be switched off. Her partner, Mark Brooks, lay under a transparent cover surrounded by tubes and machines. His body was swollen, blistered and broken.

Moses was in a state of shock. Just six days earlier, Brooks had been enjoying a game of golf in eastern Spain in bright sunshine near his home. He sought treatment the next day for shoulder pain, and was given a painkiller injection of the drug metamizole at a local clinic.

Two days after the injection, he was admitted to hospital in the town of Torrevieja in Alicante province with suspected depleted white blood cells. Three days after the jab, he was in intensive care with failing organs. Five days after it, he was dead.