The World Health Organization (WHO) warns of contaminated children’s cough syrups. On Monday, she called for “immediate and coordinated action” to protect children from contaminated medicines. Numerous cases of confirmed or suspected contamination with diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol from children’s cough syrups have been reported in at least seven countries in the past four months.
More than 300 children in the Gambia, Indonesia and Uzbekistan died last year from acute kidney injury, according to the WHO – these deaths were attributed to contaminated medicines. Most were young children under the age of five.
Antifreeze additive in cough syrup for children
According to WHO, the contaminants are toxic chemicals used as industrial solvents and antifreeze that can be fatal in small amounts. “They should never be in medicine.” The WHO published three medical alerts about the incidents in Gambia, Indonesia and Uzbekistan between early October and mid-January, which were also forwarded to the national health authorities of the 194 WHO member states. In these warnings, she calls, among other things, for contaminated medicines to be removed from circulation and for greater supervision of supply chains in the countries concerned.
As these are not isolated cases, regulators and governments must ensure that only medicines approved for sale are marketed and come from approved suppliers. Better resources are also needed for production site inspections and more market surveillance, including targeted testing.
Among other things, the drug manufacturers asked the WHO to source pharmaceutical-grade excipients only from qualified suppliers, conduct extensive testing and keep accurate records of material purchases through distribution to facilitate traceability in case of incidents.
Product warnings for different manufacturers
The WHO had issued product alerts for cough syrups from Indian companies Maiden Pharmaceuticals and Marion Biotech, which have been linked to the deaths in Gambia and Uzbekistan respectively. She also warned about cough syrups from the four Indonesian manufacturers PT Yarindo Farmatama, PT Universal Pharmaceutical, PT Konimex and PT AFI Pharma, which were sold in Indonesia.
The companies have denied that their products are contaminated or declined to comment while the investigation is ongoing.
Source: Krone
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