WHO: Indian cough syrup linked to deaths of 20 children was circulating for months

An Indian drug maker blamed for the deaths of 20 children in Uzbekistan produced multiple batches of tainted cough syrup over more than a year, according to data from export records and the World Health Organization.

The WHO said this week that 21 batches of cough syrup made by India’s Marion Biotech were tested by Uzbek authorities and found to contain unsafe levels of two toxic chemicals. Some of these batches were identified in separate Indian export records as having been manufactured as early as May 2021 and exported to the Central Asian nation that June. Other batches appear to have been made on more than half a dozen dates and as recently as August 2022.

Marion said it followed safety procedures and is cooperating with Indian regulators, who have yet to release the results of their own testing of drug samples. The small drug maker, based in Noida, near New Delhi, denied the WHO’s claim that the toxin ethylene glycol was found in its Doc-1 Max product and cast doubt on the quality of the Uzbek authorities’ investigation.

“There is something more to the deaths of the children rather than simplistically blaming it on the syrup,” the company said in an emailed statement.

The production timeline raises new questions about quality controls in pharmaceuticals sent to developing countries. At least 70 children died in Gambia last year from tainted cough syrup supplied by another Indian drug maker, a parliamentary committee in the African nation found. And in Indonesia, tainted syrup produced by local firms killed about 200 people, mostly children, in 2022.