Indian medicine becomes a source of death worldwide,
Jammu: India is considered to be one of the important countries in the world in terms of pharmaceutical manufacturing, about 3000 pharmaceutical companies run 10000 pharmaceutical factories across the country from where medicines are shipped to other countries including the United States.
On the other hand, after at least 70 children died last year after drinking cough syrup in the West African country of Gambia, India's pharmaceutical companies received a severe shock.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in its latest report on deaths caused by drugs manufactured in India said that the latest deaths in Gambia and Uzbekistan have made international headlines, making India's drug Questions are being raised about the quality of medicines in the pharmaceutical industry.
According to the BBC report, health expert Dinesh Thakur and advocate Prashant Reddy write in their book "The Truth Pill" that the first case of diethylene glycol poisoning in India was recorded in 1972 when 15 children died in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.
Since then, there have been large-scale poisoning incidents in the Ramnagar area of occupied Jammu and Kashmir and in several Indian states.
According to the Kashmir Media Service, the authors said the death toll could be much higher because diethylene glycol poisoning is difficult to diagnose. Do not test the final formulation.
Indian regulators have said investigations are underway into four cough syrups linked to child deaths in Gambia that were identified by the World Health Organization. The manufacturing license of a firm whose products allegedly caused deaths in Uzbekistan has been revoked.
The agency has also made it mandatory for cough syrup manufacturers to test samples before exporting their products. One of the survivors is Pawan Kumar who was 15 months old when he drank this cough syrup.
The parents say that they want action to be taken against those responsible for their children's death. Marfa's wife, whose three-year-old son Irfan died 10 days after drinking syrup, says, "We want justice." We want the killers to be punished."
Skish Khajuria, a social activist in Jammu, said the manufacturer and drug control officers failed to do their duty.
Jammu and Kashmir drug controller Lotika Khajuria told the BBC that cough syrup samples collected in Ramnagar and sent to a lab in Chandigarh for testing contained "more than 34 percent diethylene glycol."
According to Miss Khajuria, the results of the samples have been confirmed by another lab in Kolkata, the same conclusion reached by a team of experts led by pediatrician Bhuneet Bharti who investigated the deaths.
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