The World Health Organization said last year the syrups, made by Indian manufacturer Maiden Pharmaceuticals Ltd, contained lethal toxins ethylene glycol (EG) and diethylene glycol (DEG) – used in car brake fluid. "If you ask and you don't get informed, it's a dead end," Rutendo Kuwana, the WHO's team lead for incidents with substandard and falsified medicines, told Reuters in an interview on March 31. Drug inspectors found a dozen violations at Maiden last October related to the production of the cough syrups sold to Gambia, a government document showed. Among these, some of the COAs of raw ingredients used in making the syrups, including propylene glycol, were missing batch numbers. Kuwana said the WHO was sure of its own cough syrup test results from two separate independent laboratories, both of which showed contamination.

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