Fight For Justice: Gambian Parents Sue Indian Harm Giant Over Contaminated Cough Syrup Tragedy

By bird story agency

A group of 19 Gambian parents has taken a decisive step towards pursuing justice, initiating legal action against an Indian pharmaceutical company as well as the company’s local representatives.

Tragically, more than 60 children are believed to have lost their lives due to contaminated cough syrup manufactured by Maiden Pharmaceuticals Ltd.

According to a report by the BBC, the parents of the children are taking legal action, seeking damages in excess of US$4.7 million, holding the India-based company responsible for the devastating loss of their children.

The Gambia Bar Association and the Female Lawyers Association of the Gambia, are providing the parents with the support required to pursue international legal action.

The families also want the country’s health ministry and medicines control agency to acknowledge that they did not effectively carry out their responsibility to supervise the importation, distribution, and sale of medications in the nation.

In addition, they want the importer’s license revoked and official acknowledgement that their children did, in fact, pass away from the cough syrup.

Furthermore, investigations are underway to explore the possibility of government-led legal action against the company.

The World Health Organization (WHO) issued an alert regarding cough syrup drugs produced by the company after the deaths of 66 children in November 2022.

WHO’s assessment, involving the collection of 23 drug samples for testing, revealed that four of the samples were contaminated with diethylene glycol/ethylene glycol—a suspected agent that may have contributed to the tragic fatalities.

“The findings remain the same with the previous reports which indicates that Promethazine Oral Suspension, Kofexmalin Baby Cough Syrup, Makoff Baby Cough Syrup and Magrip N Cold Syrup were all contaminated,” the parliamentary committee report reads in part.

More recently, a comprehensive drug analysis report by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) in May 2023 shed further light on the matter, revealing that the presence of two contaminated agents caused an alarming cluster of Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) cases among children.

The Gambian scandal is one of a number of incidents that are connected to Indian pharmaceutical companies.

A 2022 Reuters report shows a similar incident in Uzbekistan led to the death of 18 children who consumed Doc-1 Max Syrup – an India-made children syrup.

New Delhi TV, an Indian Tv channel, in June reported WHO had flagged 7 India-made syrups suspected to have caused 300 children deaths globally including those in 12 deaths in Cameroon.

Africa imports more than 70% of its medicines and pharmaceutical supplies with India accounting for close to 20% of the total.

World Health Organisation data shows that close to 500,000 people across Africa die annually due to counterfeit imported drugs (the number could be higher as WHO figures were for part of Africa only).

Ongoing plans to establish the African Medicines Agency, a continental regulatory body for medical products, could alleviate similar incidences as the agency will harmonize medical products regulation across the AU member countries.

This article was originally by bird story agency