WHO syrup alert: 'Punjab FDA doubts product duplicated to defame India,' claims QP Pharma MD

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday said that a contaminated cough syrup - Guaifenesin Syrup TG Syrup - made by an Indian company had been found in the Marshall Islands and Micronesia. The syrup was manufactured by Punjab-based QP Pharma Chem Limited and marketed by Trillium Pharma, which is based in Haryana.

Today, QP Pharma's Managing Director Sudhir Pathak claimed that Punjab's Food And Drug Administration doubted that someone had "duplicated the cough syrup sent to Cambodia" and then sold it in the Marshall Islands and Micronesia to defame India. "The FDA department has taken samples of cough syrup sent to Cambodia for testing. A total of 18,336 bottles of cough syrup were sent," Pathak told the news agency ANI.

The WHO on Tuesday issued a medical product alert, saying the syrup "contained unacceptable amounts of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol as contaminants". The global health agency said that to date, neither the manufacturer nor the marketer had provided guarantees to it on the safety and quality of these products. "Diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol are toxic to humans when consumed and can prove fatal," it said.

"The substandard product is unsafe and its use, especially in children, may result in serious injury or death. Toxic effects can include abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhoea, inability to pass urine, headache, altered mental state, and acute kidney injury which may lead to death," WHO said.

This is the third such case where an Indian firm has been accused of manufacturing and exporting contaminated syrups. In October last year, the WHO issued an alert for four syrups manufactured by Haryana-based Maiden Pharmaceuticals Limited. The agency also linked the syrups with the deaths of 66 children in The Gambia.

However, India later informed the global health agency that no contamination was found in the samples. In a letter to WHO, DCGI chief VG Somani told WHO said that the samples taken from Maiden Pharma had been found to be within specifications.

In December, Uzbekistan claimed that 18 children had died after consuming cough syrup made by Noida-based Marion Biotech. In a statement, Uzbekistan's health ministry said the children who died had consumed the Dok-1 Max Syrup produced by Marion Biotech. In January this year, the production licence of the firm was suspended and the police arrested three officials of the company as part of the probe.