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He warned that contaminated medicines could still be found for several years, because adulterated barrels of an essential ingredient may remain in warehouses. Cough syrups and the ingredient, propylene glycol, both have shelf-lives of around two years. Unscrupulous actors sometimes substitute propylene glycol with toxic alternatives, ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol, because they are cheaper, several pharmaceutical manufacturing experts told Reuters. The WHO said it has also offered help to Liberia and Cameroon – which recently signalled that it too may have contaminated cough syrups for sale. The contaminated syrups in Liberia were made by India's Synercare Mumbai, according to the Nigerian regulator.

Persons: Rutendo Kuwana, Kuwana, –, syrups, Naresh Kumar Goyal, QP Pharmachem, India's Synercare, Synercare, It's, Jennifer Rigby, Krishna N.Das, Edward McAllister, Stanley Widianto, Sumit Khanna, Sophie Yu, Sara Ledwith, Michele Gershberg Organizations: World Health Organization, WHO, Reuters, Pharmaceutical, Marshall, Indonesian, –, PT Universal Pharmaceutical Industries, AFI, Pharmaceuticals, Marion Biotech, Maiden Pharmaceuticals, Thomson Locations: LIBERIA, CAMEROON, Liberia, Nigeria, Gambia, Uzbekistan, Micronesia, Indonesian, – Timor Leste, Cambodia, Senegal, Philippines, Cameroon, syrups, Marshall Islands, India's Synercare Mumbai, Nigerian, Liberian, India, Panama, Delhi, Dakar, Jakarta, Ahmedabad, Beijing

The Additional Chief Secretary, G. Anupama, said in a text message, "Enquiry is underway" and directed Reuters to the health minister for Haryana state, Anil Vij, for further details. Its chief minister and health minister, to whom Yashpal also sent his complaint, did not respond to requests for comment. Naresh Kumar Goyal, the founder of Maiden Pharmaceuticals, told Reuters in December his company did nothing wrong in the production of the cough syrup. The bribery allegation was one of about half a dozen claims of corruption by Yashpal against Taneja in the letter. Yashpal told Reuters he did not comply, because he did not feel comfortable bringing such details to the deputy of someone he had accused of corruption.

Persons: Sagnia, Edward McAllister, Yashpal, Manmohan Taneja, Taneja, Maiden, Yashpal –, –, Shatrujeet Kapur, Kapur, Anupama, Anil Vij, Vij, Naresh Kumar Goyal, Goyal, Narendra Modi, Taneja's, Lalit Kumar Goel, Goel, Krishna N, Jennifer Rigby, Sara Ledwith, Michele Gershberg Organizations: REUTERS, World Health Organization, WHO, Reuters, Corruption Bureau, Maiden Pharmaceuticals, pharma, Corruption, Taneja, EG, Thomson Locations: Yundum, Gambia, DELHI, Haryana, New Delhi, Vietnam, India, London

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.

☆ As African kids died, doctors fought for ban on toxic Indian syrup
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Maiden Managing Director Naresh Kumar Goyal told Reuters he had "not done anything wrong" and did not respond to further questions. In December, India’s health regulator said it did its own tests and found no toxins in the syrups. Yet even as the doctors’ evidence of toxins mounted, Gambian government officials told Reuters they wanted more proof. “We took their histories and asked them if they took the drugs, and we just knew” that the syrup was the culprit. If tests for toxins had been done in late July or early August, a sales ban could have saved dozens of children, she said.

☆ Exclusive: WHO investigating links between cough syrup deaths, considers advice for parents
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( Jennifer Rigby | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

The deaths of children from acute kidney injury began in July 2022 in Gambia, followed by cases in Indonesia and Uzbekistan. The WHO has said the deaths are linked to over-the-counter cough syrups the children took for common illnesses and which contained a known toxin, either diethylene glycol or ethylene glycol. The WHO, working with Indonesia’s drugs regulator, also issued an alert in October about cough syrups made by four Indonesian manufacturers and sold domestically. The manufacturers are: PT Yarindo Farmatama, PT Universal Pharmaceutical, PT Konimex, PT AFI Farma. PT Universal Pharmaceutical Industries’ lawyer, Hermansyah Hutagalung, said it had pulled from the market all cough syrups deemed dangerous.

☆ Maiden Pharma hopes to reopen plant as Indian lab clears syrups suspected by WHO in Gambia deaths
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Krishna N. Das | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

I have not done anything wrong," Maiden Managing Director Naresh Kumar Goyal told Reuters. "We will now try to request the authorities to reopen the factory. Somani, said that tests on samples of Maiden's products had "been found to be complying with specifications" and no ethylene glycol or diethylene glycol was detected in them. A spokesperson for India's health ministry did not respond to a request for comment. The tests were carried out by the state-run Regional Drug Testing Laboratory in the northern city of Chandigarh, the government said earlier.

☆ India halts cough syrup production at factory linked to Gambia deaths
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

NEW DELHI, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Indian authorities have halted production of cough syrup at a factory of Maiden Pharmaceuticals, a state minister said on Wednesday, after a WHO report that the medicine may be linked to the deaths of dozens of children in Gambia. The WHO said last week that laboratory analysis of four Maiden products - Promethazine Oral Solution, Kofexmalin Baby Cough Syrup, Makoff Baby Cough Syrup and Magrip N Cold Syrup - had "unacceptable" amounts of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol, which can be toxic and lead to acute kidney injury. He told Reuters last week that the company was trying to find out from its buyer what had happened in Gambia. Maiden says on its web site it has an annual production capacity of 2.2 million syrup bottles, 600 million capsules, 18 million injections, 300,000 ointment tubes and 1.2 billion tablets at three factories. The cough syrups had been approved for export only to Gambia, India says, although the WHO says they may have gone elsewhere through informal markets.

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