PremiumNEW DELHI : Even as the Central government has given clean chit to the Maiden pharmaceuticals accused of manufacturing contaminated cough syrup linked to death of 66 Gambian children, the Drugs Controller General of India VG Somani has written to the Dr Rogerio Gaspar, Director Regulation & Pre-Qualification (WHO) for details on causality relationship between drugs manufactured in India and deaths in Gambia.
The Indian government constituted four-member committee of experts chaired by Dr YK Gupta , vice chairman, standing national committee on medicines with experts from NIV-Pune, NCDC and CDCSO.
“The technical committee has met several times. Each time the committee has requested for specific information from WHO on further details essential to establish the causality. Communications were sent to WHO on 15, 20, 29 October. Every time WHO has maintained that they are in contact with their team handling the case assessment and would get back at the earliest or that their ground partners are working on it. But no information so far has been exchanged by WHO with CDCSO," Somani stated in a letter to WHO seen by Mint.
Somani further stated that Gambia has informed, as per media, that there has been no direct causal relation established yet between the cough syrup consumption and the deaths and that certain children who had died had not consumed the syrup in question.
The four drugs are Promethazine Oral Solution BP, KOFEXMALIN Baby Cough Syrup, MaKOFF Baby Cough syrup and MaGrip n Cold Syrup, which are licenced to Maiden Pharma for export purposes only.
According to the DCGI letter hints that the statement issued by WHO led to a narrative to target Indian quality drugs internationally. “This in turn has adversely impacted the image of India’s pharmaceutical products across the globe and caused irreparable damage to the supply chain of pharma items as well as the repute of the national regulatory framework.