Fifth Report From Gambia Implicates Indian Drug Maker for Contaminated Syrups - Banjot Kaur

The Wire

The issue of the deaths of 70 children in the Gambia after consuming cough syrup is back in the news again. These deaths were linked to four medicines made by an Indian manufacturer, Maiden Pharmaceuticals. A Gambian presidential task force has now recommended that the government must sue the drug manufacturer, Maiden Pharmaceuticals, and the drug importer, Atlantic Pharmaceuticals. 
It also wants the Government of India to be sued. This is perhaps the first instance where a foreign country has been recommended to take legal action against the Indian government. The government of Gambia has made it clear that it would be suing both Maiden and Atlantic. It hasn’t made its stance on the Indian government clear but has maintained it would actively engage with it so that the victims the parents of the children who died get justice.

But there have been at least four scientific reports previously that linked these deaths to Maiden Pharmaceutical’s products. Yet, the Indian government has remained defiant and health minister Mansukh Mandaviya went on to say on a podcast recently that the kids died due to diarrhoea. Will this report nudge the Indian government to act?

Click here to watch the video report