WHO issues alert over 'contaminated' cough syrup made in India

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has flagged another batch of India-manufactured cough syrup, just months after it issued a similar alert for contaminated cough syrups produced in India.

The agency has now issued an alert for India-made syrups sold in the Marshall Islands and Micronesia. It said that the cough syrups were found to contain "unacceptable amounts of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol."

The findings were made by the quality control labs of the Therapeutic Goods Administration of Australia. These are the same substances that were found in syrups in Gambia and Uzbekistan last year. The consumption of these syrups was linked to several deaths in Gambia and Uzbekistan.

The recent "substandard" medicine flagged by the WHO is called Guaifenesin Syrup TG and is used to relieve chest congestion and cough. The health agency has asked people not to use the syrup.

Meanwhile, the regulators have been asked to increase surveillance of supply chains. The WHO has also asked manufacturers to test the raw materials used in such syrups. The medicine in question was manufactured by QP Pharmachem Ltd, an Indian firm based out of Punjab. It is marketed by Haryana-based Trillium Pharma.

The alert essentially implies that the product is unsafe to use and may even result in serious injury or death. Diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol can cause abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhoea, headaches, acute kidney injury, and even death.

These contaminants were linked to as many as 70 deaths in the Gambia and 18 deaths in Uzbekistan due to acute kidney injury.

The World Health Organisation first learned of contaminated medicines after the Gambian medical authorities saw a noticeable increase in cases of acute kidney injury in children under the age of five in late July. They reported last month that dozens of children in their country had died as a result.

The latest alert comes after a batch of the medicine with an expiration date of October 2023 was reported to the WHO. "To date, neither the stated manufacturer nor the marketer have provided guarantees to WHO on the safety and quality of these products," the agency said.

The alert does not mean that the agency has taken direct action against the manufacturer, it is meant to warn all stakeholders. Meanwhile, the managing director of QP Pharmachem Ltd., Sudhir Pathak, has said that the drug was not certified for use in the Marshall Islands and Micronesia, per a BBC report.

"We did not send these bottles to the Pacific region, and they were not certified for use there. We don't know under what circumstances and conditions these bottles reached the Marshall Islands and Micronesia," he said. It remains to be seen if the Indian government takes any action against the manufacturer in question.