4 Indian cough syrups, 66 deaths in the Gambia

Brut India

An Indian company's four cough syrups were linked to 66 children's deaths in the Gambia, but these syrups weren't sold in the Indian market... Brut journalist Labanya Maitra explains.

Transcript

00:00Four Indian cough syrups were linked to 66 children's deaths in the Gambia.

00:06The loss of these young lives is beyond heartbreaking.

00:10In July, multiple children started developing acute kidney injuries.

00:15They were all younger than five years old.

00:17They allegedly started falling ill three to five days after taking a paracetamol syrup.

00:22That's when the Gambian government started their investigation.

00:26The children couldn't pass urine, had fever and vomiting, which eventually led to kidney

00:30failure.

00:31But it wasn't clear exactly which syrup caused this.

00:34By August, 28 children had died.

00:38In September, the Gambian authorities started collecting these syrups from the children's

00:42homes.

00:43And on the 9th, the government banned all paracetamol syrups in the country.

00:47The WHO, however, hadn't found any evidence against the syrups at the time.

00:53They were leaning towards E. coli infections or severe flooding in the country as possible

00:58causes for the deaths.

00:59About a month later, the WHO released an alert.

01:03For four contaminated medicines identified in the Gambia that have been potentially linked

01:10with acute kidney injuries and 66 deaths among children.

01:16The four medicines are cough and cold syrups produced by Maiden Pharmaceuticals Limited

01:24in India.

01:25These were the four syrups that were identified by the WHO.

01:29Although the exact link between the deaths and the cough syrups was still unclear, the

01:35WHO said that the product samples had unacceptable amounts of these toxic contaminants.

01:41Experts say that these substances are not allowed in food or drugs and are actually

01:46used in antifreeze, brake fluids and other industrial applications.

01:50But they were also used as a cheaper alternative to glycerin in some pharmaceutical products.

01:57Their effects?

01:58Abdominal pain, inability to urinate, vomiting, diarrhoea and acute kidney injury, among others.

02:06The acute kidney failure can start within 8 to 24 hours of exposure to a lethal dose

02:12and result in multi-organ failure within a week.

02:15The Indian government and drug regulator launched an inquiry into the matter and samples were

02:19sent for testing.

02:20The samples will be sent to the Central Drug Laboratory in Calcutta.

02:27If anything goes wrong, a strict investigation will be carried out.

02:36None of the four cough syrups were available for sale in India.

02:39And authorities said that in case they did happen to be in the Indian market, their sale

02:43would be halted immediately.

02:45While the contaminated products have so far only been detected in the Gambia, they may

02:52have been distributed to other countries.

02:55WHO recommends all countries detect and remove these products from circulation to prevent

03:04further harm to patients.

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