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LONDON: There’s an ongoing world menace posed by poisonous cough syrups, the World Well being Group (WHO) informed Reuters, saying it was now working with six extra international locations than beforehand revealed to trace the doubtless lethal youngsters’s medicines.
The UN company has already named 9 international locations the place tainted syrups might have been on sale, after the deaths of greater than 300 infants on three continents final 12 months had been linked to the medicine.
Rutendo Kuwana, the WHO group lead for incidents with substandard and falsified medicines, declined to call the six new international locations the company is working with, whereas investigations are nonetheless below method.
He warned that contaminated medicines might nonetheless be discovered for a number of years, as a result of adulterated barrels of an important ingredient might stay in warehouses. Cough syrups and the ingredient, propylene glycol, each have shelf-lives of round two years. “That is an ongoing threat,” mentioned Kuwana.
Unscrupulous actors generally substitute propylene glycol with poisonous options, ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol, as a result of they’re cheaper, a number of pharmaceutical manufacturing consultants informed Reuters.
The options are extra generally utilized in brake fluid and different merchandise not meant for human consumption.
The WHO’s working principle is that in 2021, when costs of propylene glycol spiked, a number of suppliers blended the cheaper poisonous liquids with the legit chemical, Kuwana mentioned. He didn’t say the place the suppliers had been primarily based, and added that obscure provide chains have made proving this tough.
Pharmaceutical producers, together with these alleged to have produced the contaminated syrups which have been discovered to this point, usually supply components from exterior suppliers.
LIBERIA AND CAMEROON
Earlier this week, Nigeria’s regulator issued a warning about contaminated paracetamol syrups offered in Liberia, though no deaths have been reported there. The Nigerian regulator was testing the syrups, which weren’t offered in Nigeria, as a result of Liberia has no testing amenities.
The WHO issued security alerts final 12 months for Indian-made merchandise present in Gambia and Uzbekistan, and this 12 months in Micronesia and the Marshall Islands.
It additionally issued an alert final 12 months for Indonesian-made syrups that had been solely offered domestically. Indonesian authorities say greater than 200 youngsters had been possible poisoned by these.
Three Indonesian-based producers – PT Yarindo Farmatama, PT Common Pharmaceutical Industries, PT AFI Farma – have had their licences revoked. A fourth, PT Konimex, mentioned it had recalled all the related merchandise and its web site says it was cleared by the Indonesian regulator to promote new batches as of December 2022. The Indonesian regulator didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
In January, the WHO named 4 different international locations it was working with – Timor Leste, Cambodia, Senegal and the Philippines – to trace whether or not any of the contaminated syrups had reached their markets. — Reuters
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