India may issue alert on Marion cough syrup exports as lab tests find toxins

India may issue a notice regarding cough syrup sold by Marion Biotech, whose medicines have been linked to the deaths of several children in Uzbekistan, as testing revealed that many of the company's medicine samples contained toxins, an Indian drug inspector stated on Saturday (March 4), as per an exclusive Reuters report.

After tests in a government laboratory that revealed 22 of 36 samples of syrup to be "adulterated and spurious," Indian police detained three Marion workers on Friday (March 3) and are searching for two directors.

According to Vaibhav Babbar, an inspector working on the Marion probe, who spoke to Reuters, the samples were contaminated with ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol, which the World Health Organization claims were present in the items marketed by the two corporations in the two nations.

There have been 19 child deaths in Uzbekistan and up to 70 in the Gambia.

As per data released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in January, acute renal damage brought on by tainted medications claimed the lives of more than 300 children, most of whom were under the age of five, in Gambia, Indonesia, and Uzbekistan last year.

The Philippines, Timor Leste, Senegal, and Cambodia were all mentioned as possible impacted countries since they may have the drugs available for purchase. Moreover, it urged its 194 member nations to take "urgent and coordinated measures" to stop further fatalities.

The WHO claimed that four of Maiden's cough syrups, another pharmaceuticals company in India may have killed dozens of children in Gambia, prompting India to halt production at Maiden for breaking manufacturing regulations in October, 2022.

Maiden has refuted claims that the deaths in the Gambia were caused by its medications, and testing conducted by an Indian government laboratory detected no contaminants in them.