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.
Tag Archive for: Maiden Pharmaceuticals Ltd
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.
Contaminated cough and paracetamol syrups imported into Gambia almost certainly caused the deaths of 66 children due to acute kidney injury, according to an investigation led by the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention and Gambian scientists.
Gambia has not yet confirmed that toxic cough syrup was the cause of the deaths of 70 children from acute kidney injury, a representative of the country’s Medicines Control Agency said on Monday.
Indonesia’s health minister said on Friday that the number of children who had died from acute kidney injury (AKI) rose to 133 from the previously reported 99.
Indian health authorities said on Wednesday they had halted all production at the main factory of Maiden Pharmaceuticals near New Delhi after a WHO report that its cough syrups exported to Gambia may be linked to the deaths of dozens of children there.
Gambia’s President Adama Barrow on Friday said a surge in acute kidney injuries likely linked to a paracetamol syrup that killed dozens of children in past months was under control, with only two diagnoses in the last two weeks.
