Marion Biotech: Uzbekistan links child deaths to India cough syrup

Uzbekistan's wellness ministry has said that 18 children person died aft drinking a cough syrup manufactured by Indian cause shaper Marion Biotech.

The ministry said that preliminary tests showed a batch of the medicine contained ethylene glycol, a toxic substance.

The children were fixed the Dok-1 Max syrup without a doctor's prescription, it said.

The magnitude they consumed besides exceeded the modular dose for children.

India's wellness ministry and Marion Biotech person not responded to the BBC's petition for remark yet. Reuters cited a authorities root arsenic saying that "the wellness ministry was looking into the matter".

News bureau ANI quoted a Marion Biotech enforcement arsenic saying that the institution has halted accumulation of the syrup temporarily. He added that the authorities was conducting an enquiry and that the steadfast would instrumentality enactment accordingly.

Marion Biotech is based successful Noida, adjacent India's nationalist superior Delhi. Its website is presently down, but the company's LinkedIn leafage says it was founded successful 1999 and that its products are "household names successful Central Asian countries, Central and Latin America, South East Asia and Africa".

India produces a 3rd of the world's medicines, mostly successful the signifier of generic drugs.

The country, location to immoderate of the fastest-growing pharmaceutical companies, is known arsenic the "world's pharmacy" and meets overmuch of the aesculapian needs of processing countries.

The Uzbek ministry statement, dated 27 December, says that Dok-1 Max tablets and syrup person been sold successful the state since 2012.

"It was recovered that the deceased children, earlier admittance to infirmary treatment, took this cause astatine location for 2-7 days, 3-4 times a day, 2.5-5ml, which exceeds the modular dose of the cause for children," the ministry said.

The connection did not specify implicit what clip play the deaths occurred. BBC Monitoring had reported connected 23 December, citing quality website Gazeta.uz, that Uzbek authorities were investigating "claims that 15 children died successful cardinal Samarkand portion implicit the past 2 months aft taking a cough syrup made successful India".

On 26 December, Podrobno.uz quality website reported that 21 children - 15 of them nether the property of 3 - were treated for acute kidney nonaccomplishment "allegedly caused by the India-made cough syrup Dok-1 Max betwixt September and December". Three of the patients recovered.

The ministry besides said that "preliminary laboratory studies person shown that this bid of Dok-1 Max syrup contains ethylene glycol".

In October, the World Health Organization (WHO) had sounded a planetary alert and linked 4 India-made cough syrups to the deaths of 66 children from kidney injuries successful The Gambia. It said tests connected samples of the syrup showed that they contained unacceptable amounts of toxic substances diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol.

Both the Indian authorities and the company, Maiden Pharmaceuticals, person denied the allegations.

India said earlier successful December that tests connected the 4 syrups showed that they complied with specifications, and a authorities authoritative told the BBC that the WHO had been "presumptuous" successful blaming the syrups. But the WHO said it stood by the enactment taken.

Last week, a parliamentary committee successful The Gambia recommended prosecution of Maiden Pharmaceuticals aft weeks of investigation. The committee besides recommended banning each products by the steadfast successful the country.