Toxic cough syrups continue to represent a hazard on a worldwide scale, the World Health Organisation (WHO) told Reuters, adding that it is now collaborating with six more nations than previously disclosed to track the potentially lethal children’s medications.

After the deaths of more than 300 infants on three continents last year were linked to the medications, the U.N. agency has already identified nine nations where tainted syrups may have been sold.

While investigations are still ongoing, Rutendo Kuwana, the WHO team director for events involving substandard and counterfeit medications, declined to identify the six new countries the organisation is collaborating with.

He cautioned that because tainted barrels of a key ingredient can still be present in warehouses in a few years, contaminated medications might still be available.

Both cough syrups and their main component, propylene glycol, have a two-year shelf life.

“This is an ongoing risk,” said Kuwana.

Because ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol are more affordable alternatives to propylene glycol, dishonest people will occasionally use those instead, experts in pharmaceutical manufacture told Reuters.

The alternatives are more frequently utilised in brake fluid and other non-food goods.

The working hypothesis of the WHO is that one or more suppliers mingled the less expensive dangerous liquids with the legal chemical in 2021 when the price of propylene glycol increased, according to Kuwana. He omitted to mention the location of the providers and noted that establishing this was challenging due to hazy supply networks.

Ingredients are frequently sourced from outside vendors by pharmaceutical manufacturers, including those who are thought to have created the tainted syrups that have been discovered so far.

Although there have been no known fatalities there, Nigeria’s regulatory body earlier this week issued a warning about tainted paracetamol syrups marketed in Liberia. Because Liberia lacks testing facilities, the Nigerian regulator tested the syrups, which were not sold in Nigeria.

The WHO issued safety alerts for Indian-made products identified in the Gambia, Uzbekistan, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands this year as well as last year.

Additionally, syrups created in Indonesia that were exclusively sold domestically were the subject of an alert last year. According to Indonesian authorities, these probably poisoned more than 200 youngsters.

Licences have been cancelled for three firms with offices in Indonesia: PT Yarindo Farmatama, PT Universal Pharmaceutical Industries, and PT AFI Farma. The website of a fourth company, PT Konimex, claims that the Indonesian regulator has given it the go-ahead to sell fresh batches as of December 2022 after it claimed to have recalled all pertinent products. An inquiry for comments was not immediately answered by the Indonesian regulator.

The WHO announced in January that it was collaborating with Timor Leste, Cambodia, Senegal, and the Philippines to determine whether any of the contaminated syrups had entered those markets.

According to Kuwana, there is now no risk to the populace in the nations the WHO has named, either as a result of tainted medications being removed off shelves or as a result of them never having been sold in the first place.

The governments of the countries either concurred, said there was no risk, or declined to comment.

The WHO claimed that it has also offered assistance to Liberia and Cameroon, both of which have lately indicated that they may have sold tainted cough syrups.

The Naturcold cough syrup was related to the deaths of six children in Cameroon, according to a statement made by the country’s health regulator in April. China’s Fraken Group is the manufacturer listed on the packet, but it did not immediately respond to queries for comment.

The medication was purchased from unapproved sources, according to a warning from the Cameroonian government, and may have been brought in illegally. Requests for more details received no response from them.

The majority of the additional manufacturers connected to the recent series of events are situated in India. The authorities there have shut down two businesses, Maiden Pharmaceuticals, which sold syrups to Gambia, and Marion Biotech, which sold syrups to Uzbekistan, whose products have been linked to fatalities.

The creator of Maiden Pharmaceuticals, Naresh Kumar Goyal, told Reuters in December that his business done nothing improper in the manufacture of the cough medication. Requests for comments have not received a response from Marion Biotech.

In addition to these incidents, a WHO safety alert was issued after Australian laboratory testing revealed contamination in pharmaceuticals sent to the Marshall Islands and Micronesia. Early this year, the producer, QP Pharmachem, told Reuters that no problems had been discovered by its own tests.

According to the Nigerian regulator, the poisoned syrups in Liberia were produced by Synercare Mumbai in India. As a precaution, the Liberian health authority stated it will burn the stock and recall two further Synercare products.

(Adapted from Reuters.com)

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