West African Country, Gambia Recalls India-Made Cough Syrup Over Deaths Of 66 Children

Meanwhile, India’s drug regulator has initiated a probe and sought further details from the World Health Organisation.

The Gambian Government has called on families to return Indian-made Cough Syrup linked to deaths of 66 children in the country.

The West African country has also launched a door-to-door campaign to collect the cough and cold syrups blamed for the deaths of the children from kidney injury, ndtv.com reports.

Drugs Controller, the source explained.

From the preliminary inquiry, it has been made out that Maiden Pharmaceutical Limited is the manufacturer licensed by the state drug controller for the products under reference, and holds manufacturing permission for these products.

“The company has manufactured and exported these products only to The Gambia so far,” the source said.

It is a practice that the importing country tests the products for quality before sanctioning their usage there.

According to tentative results received by WHO out of the 23 samples tested, four samples have been found to contain Diethylene Glycol/ Ethylene Glycol as indicated. It has also been informed by WHO that the certificate of analysis will be made available to it in near future and WHO will share it with India.

“At the same time, the exact one-to-one causal relation of death has not yet been provided by WHO, nor have the details of labels/ products been shared by WHO with CDSCO enabling it to confirm the identity/ source of the manufacturing of the products,” the official source stated.