WHO's announcement stated that samples of the drug product "Guaifenesin syrup TG syrup" contained toxic levels of diethylene and ethylene glycol, which could lead to death.
On April 25, the World Health Organization (WHO) said it had discovered in the Marshall Islands and Micronesia shipments of cough syrup containing toxic substances produced by an Indian company.
The WHO statement did not say whether the Marshall Islands and Micronesia had recorded cases of poisoning in children related to the above drug product.
However, the notice stated that samples of the drug product "Guaifenesin syrup TG syrup" contained toxic levels of diethylene and ethylene glycol, which could lead to death.
The Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has identified toxic substances in the above cough medicine product.
Last year, the WHO issued a warning about cough syrups made by manufacturers in India and Indonesia, which were linked to 300 deaths in children, mostly under the age of five, in Gambia, Indonesia and Uzbekistan. The deaths were all due to acute kidney injury.
According to WHO, the manufacturer of the new batches of the drug detected in the Western Pacific is QP Pharmachem Ltd of India, based in Punjab, and the intermediary marketing the product is Trillium Pharma, based in Haryana, India.
WHO said that QP Pharmachem and Trillium products have not been approved by the organization for safety and quality.
Meanwhile, QP Pharmachem CEO Sudhir Pathak confirmed that he had tested samples of the cough medicine in the export batch and found nothing of concern.
Mr. Pathak said that he has also not received any negative feedback regarding the cough medicine products that the company has distributed in India.
According to Mr. Pathak, QP Pharmachem was granted permission by the Indian government to export 18,000 bottles of cough syrup to Cambodia, but it is unclear why these products ended up in the Marshall Islands and Micronesia. Meanwhile, Trillium Pharma has not responded.
Previously, after recording the deaths of more than 300 children in many countries due to the use of cough syrups, WHO issued a statement calling on countries to urgently handle and eliminate substandard pharmaceuticals.
WHO stressed that in the past four months, the organization has received reports of a number of incidents involving over-the-counter cough syrups for children containing high levels of diethylene glycol (DEG) and ethylene glycol (EG).
These are toxic chemicals used as industrial solvents and antifreeze, they can be fatal even if ingested in very small amounts and should not be present in pharmaceuticals.
Such incidents have been reported in at least seven countries, with Gambia, Indonesia and Uzbekistan being the three countries that have reported deaths of young children from syrups containing these toxic chemicals. Most of them were children under the age of five.
WHO has called on countries to strengthen their surveillance to ensure that potentially contaminated products are detected. The agency said it is working with countries to test for toxins in pharmaceutical products./.
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