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.
Tag Archive for: propylene glycol
There is an ongoing global threat posed by toxic cough syrups, the World Health Organization (WHO) told Reuters, saying it was now working with six more countries than previously revealed to track the potentially deadly children’s medicines.
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.
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.
Indonesian police said on Monday a local trader of industrial-grade chemicals sold them as pharmaceutical-grade, leading to their use in medicated syrups that authorities suspect may have caused deaths of more than 200 children across the country.
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.
