Iraqi cough syrup found to be contaminated, according to WHO
The World Health Organization detected a batch of tainted common cold syrup on Monday, the latest in a string of alerts the organization has issued on the quality of medications made in India.
According to the WHO, pollutants diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol were identified in higher than permitted quantities in a batch of Cold Out syrup that was made for Dabilife Pharma and discovered in Iraq.
The permissible safety level for both substances is up to 0.10%, however the product included 2.1% of ethylene glycol and 0.25 percent of diethylene glycol, according to a WHO notice.
The Agency also emphasized that neither the producer nor the marketing firm had given WHO safety and quality assurances for this product, according to a Reuters report.
The notice on Cold Out was released shortly after a caution about contaminated cough syrups being distributed worldwide earlier this month. Over fifty percent of the five syrups under investigation were produced in India.
Consumption of cough syrups produced in India was blamed for at least 89 child fatalities that occurred in the Gambia and Uzbekistan last year. According to the study, Indian officials discovered irregularities at Riemann Labs that were connected to the deaths of many children in Cameroon.
The Indian government withdrew Marion Biotech’s production license, and some of its workers were detained. Marion Biotech was the company that shipped the syrups to Uzbekistan. The cough syrup that was transported to the Gambia was made by Maiden Pharmaceuticals, who disputed that their products were to blame for the fatalities or that testing conducted in an Indian government laboratory had turned up any toxins.
