WHO Asks For India’s Help

The World Health Organisation(WHO) has called Indian authorities seeking help in tracing back the origin of a contaminated cough syrup which is linked to the death of several children in Cameroon.

A warning has been issued by WHO against the syrup named Naturcold. The label of the syrup claims its manufacturer as Fraken International (England) but authorities in the UK said that no such company exists. Diethylene glycol was present in the syrup at a very high toxic amount.

WHO suspects that an Indian manufacturer may be involved in the process and asked for help from the regulators to reach out to them. This wasn’t the only incident of its kind and these medicines have been linked to the death of more than 300 children in Gambia, Uzbekistan and Indonesia. Even though the manufacturers were different each time, India was the origin place of these medicines in three out of four cases. This has forced WHO to work in close ties with the Indian Authorities.

India has emerged as one of the biggest manufacturers of pharmaceuticals and a large part of this is exported to countries across the world. This makes it even more important for an organization like WHO to work in close ties with the regulatory bodies.