The villagers are said to have consumed the brew at Shauri Yako slum within the town, before they started complaining of visual impediment.
“We first received complaints on Monday morning,” Embu hospital Medical superintendent Gerald Ndiritu said.
“Eight people have lost their lives as a result of the incident and we have several admitted,” he said.
Villagers however, put the death toll at 10.
“It is a disaster to us because most of these people are related. We have 10 people who have died,” one of the residents said.
Some of the victims interviewed by Capital FM News said they had been consuming the brew nick-named kathavuria when they started losing sight.
“You hardly realised you were going blind because we started seeing darkness, and I thought it was getting late,” one victim said.
Similar cases of villagers experiencing visual complications after consuming illicit brews have previously been reported in Machakos, Nairobi, parts of the Rift Valley and Central Provinces.