On Tuesday, the World Health Organisation stated that contaminated cough syrup made by an Indian company was found in the Marshall Islands and Micronesia, following a series of child deaths connected to other syrups in several nations last year. The syrups made by different manufacturers in India were linked to the deaths of more than 300 children in Gambia, Indonesia, and Uzbekistan in 2022. The children were mainly under 5 and died from acute kidney injury.

The WHO statement did not mention whether any youngsters in the Marshall Islands or Micronesia were ill or not. But the statement stated that the samples from a batch of imported cough syrup with the product name Guaifenesin syrup (TG syrup) were contaminated with unacceptable amounts of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol, which are toxic to humans when consumed and can prove fatal.

According to the WHO, the drugs in the new alert were manufactured by Indias QP Pharmachem Ltd., situated in Punjab, and marketed by Trillium Pharma, based in Haryana. The agency noted that neither QP Pharmachem nor Trillium has supplied WHO with guarantees about the safety and quality of these goods.

The managing director of QP Pharmachem stated that the company had tested a sample from the exported batch following a recent query from the local state drug regulator. He stated that the Indian government has authorized them to sell 18,000 bottles of syrup to Cambodia alone. He further added that the product was also sold in India and that the firm has had no complaints thus far. 

(Source: https://health.economictimes.indiatimes.com/amp/news/pharma/who-says-contaminated-cough-syrup-made-in-india-found-in-western-pacific/99758797 )