Tijan Jallow of Gambia’s Medicines Control Agency (MCA) told a local newspaper that the task force investigating the case of children who died allegedly due to the use of cough syrup made by Indian drug maker Maiden Pharmaceuticals was trying to establish which medication the children took. However, he made it clear that “a good number of kids died without taking any medications”, adding that the medicines have been tested and were found to be safe.
“But just to clear some of the shadows of doubt so that the general public will know that out of the 70 kids that died, some of the kids died without taking the medication, and out of that 70 kids some kids took medication that we have tested and the medication is not affected. They are safe to be used,” he said.
Jallow said out of the total number of children who have died, 95% are from areas which have seen high rainfall.
“Science is evidence-based, so we cannot narrow our angle only on medications because we were in the rainy season and we know for the past 15 to 20 years, The Gambia has been experiencing the highest rainfall in this season. Because we’ve realised 95% of the kids that died are from the flooded areas.”
According to him, the agency had taken water, urine and blood samples of those showing similar symptoms. “After analysing those samples, 90-95% of those samples showed the presence of six different bacteria and three different viruses,” he said.
The Gambia’s national drug regulatory body has so far not found any link between cough syrups from India and the deaths of at least 70 children and said some children died without consuming the suspected drugs, a local newspaper reported early this month.
However, the real cause of the acute kidney injury cases linked to the child deaths is still “unknown”, MCA told The Point newspaper.
Meanwhile, the Indian government has not been able to make headway into the mysterious deaths of children, as the World Health Organization (WHO) has failed to provide “relevant documents” to the government needed to investigate and find causality between the deaths among children in Gambia and cough syrups manufactured by Sonipat-based Maiden Pharmaceuticals, people in the know told ET.
India’s drug regulator has written thrice to the International health body to provide documents but there has been no response, the same people said. Last month the WHO issued a warning on cough syrups after which Indian health authorities halted all production of the company.
“We have not got anything from the WHO to take a step forward into the investigation regarding the deaths of children in The Gambia,” said a person in the know.
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