Nigeria’s health regulator is recalling a batch of Johnson & Johnson children’s cough syrup after finding an unacceptably high level of a potentially fatal toxic substance, it said on Wednesday.
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India’s drug regulator has found that a cough syrup and an anti-allergy syrup made by Norris Medicines are toxic, according to a government report, months after Indian-made cough syrups were linked to 141 children’s deaths worldwide.
The U.S. FDA is cracking down on lax testing practices by dozens of makers of healthcare products following hundreds of deaths overseas from contaminated cough syrups, a Reuters review of regulatory alerts found.
The WHO flagged contamination with unacceptable amounts of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol, which are toxic to humans when consumed and can prove fatal, in samples taken from a batch of cough syrup made by QP Pharmachem.
Gambia will make it mandatory for all pharmaceutical products from India to be inspected and tested prior to shipment from July 1, according to Gambian government documents reviewed by Reuters, the first known restrictions on national exports following the deaths of dozens of children linked to Indian-made cough syrups.
An Indian maker of a paracetamol syrup that Nigerian authorities have found toxic told Reuters on Tuesday that tests by a private Indian laboratory found them of “standard quality”, as Indian authorities launch their own investigation.
Gambia has hired a U.S. law firm to explore legal action after a government-backed investigation found that contaminated medicines from India were “very likely” to have caused the deaths of children last year, the justice minister told Reuters.
Contaminated cough syrup made by an Indian company has been found in the Marshall Islands and Micronesia, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday, after a spate of child deaths linked to other syrups in some countries last year.
Indian officials are in contact with foreign authorities and have held meetings in Africa to ensure its drug exports do not suffer, the government said on Wednesday, after Indian-made cough syrups were linked to deaths in Gambia and Uzbekistan.
India directed drug manufacturers to stop using propylene glycol sourced from the Delhi-based firm that supplied the ingredient to Marion Biotech, whose cough syrups were linked to deaths of 19 children in Uzbekistan, according to a government document seen by Reuters.
