India’s reputation as the “pharmacy of the developing world”, built assiduously by the country’s pharmaceutical companies since the time of the Aids epidemic, is in serious jeopardy. The World Health Organization (WHO) sounded the alarm last week when it said the deaths of 66 children in the Gambia could be linked to adulterated cough syrup manufactured by the Indian pharmaceutical company Maiden Pharmaceuticals.
Adulteration of cough syrup with diethylene glycol has been a known issue since 1937, when more than 100 Americans died after consuming a contaminated cough medicine manufactured by a US company. After that episode, most countries upgraded their regulatory standards to ensure mandatory testing of chemical solvents, such as propylene glycol, that are used in the manufacture of cough syrups. This was true even for India, yet the country has seen at least five instances of mass deaths linked to adulterated drugs since 1972. In one such event in 1998, in Gurgaon, a satellite city of Delhi, 33 children died after developing acute renal failure. In another, as recently as January 2020, contamination was believed to have been the cause of the deaths of 12 children in the northern state of Jammu. The common thread in these cases is what appears to be negligence on the part of the manufacturer for failing to test the chemical solvents for DEG contamination.
