Syrup from India caused mass child deaths in Gambia, confirms panel of experts

News Network
May 24, 2023

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Tainted syrup medicine imported from India was the cause of an outbreak of kidney failure that killed more than 60 children in the West African nation of Gambia last year, according to a report by a team of international experts.

The report, submitted to the Gambian health ministry earlier this year and not yet made public, is the most definitive statement yet on the cause of the episode. It contradicts the official position of Indian authorities, who insist that the country’s products weren’t to blame. A director for the Gambian ministry of health didn’t respond to calls and an emailed request for comment.

Although the committee was able to establish that a child drank the contaminated medicine from an Indian drugmaker, Maiden Pharmaceuticals Ltd., in only 22 deaths from so-called acute kidney injury, or AKI, it said that symptoms in 30 others were consistent with the poison’s effects and no other cause could be found. It lacked enough information on 13 more cases. 

“The outbreak of AKI in children in the Gambia is attributable to medicines contaminated with DEG/EG,” the committee concluded, referring to the two contaminants, diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol.

Last year’s outbreak sparked concerns about the quality of generic medicine from India, an export powerhouse that calls itself the “pharmacy of the world.” Those concerns intensified this year when exported syrups from two other Indian manufacturers were found to be tainted in the same way, leading in one case to about 20 deaths in Uzbekistan.

“We have made our stand clear that as per our testing, the product had no issue,” said Rajeev Raghuvanshi, the Indian drug controller general, in a text message to Bloomberg. He referred further questions to the health ministry, which didn’t respond to requests for comment. A representative of Maiden also didn’t respond to inquiries.

India’s central government this week imposed a new regulation requiring cough syrup to be tested by a government lab before it can be exported.

Products from Maiden, a small New Delhi firm, fell under suspicion in Gambia last September, when health officials investigating the outbreak arranged tests of several drugs given to children prior to their deaths. Three labs in three different countries would eventually confirm the presence of the contaminants in Maiden products, the committee said in its report. 

The World Health Organization issued a public alert in October and Gambia recalled the drugs.

“After the poisonous medicines were withdrawn, there were no further cases,” said Kalle Hoppu, one of the committee members, in an email to Bloomberg. He called that “a very definitive sign that this outbreak was caused by these medicines.” Hoppu is a former director of the Poison Information Center at Helsinki University Hospital in Finland.

Indian authorities have defended the drugs. In December, the Indian drug controller general at the time, V.G. Somani, told the WHO that his organization’s own tests of Maiden drugs found no contamination. He went on to accuse the agency of acting on flimsy evidence and having “adversely impacted the image of Indian pharmaceutical products across the globe.” As recently as March, the Indian government said in a statement that the drugs weren’t tainted and didn’t kill anyone. 

Earlier reports by a Gambian parliamentary committee and by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention both pointed to the Maiden drugs as the most plausible explanation for the outbreak. But the report by the 11-member expert committee was the first charged specifically with establishing the cause. 

The panel was set up by Gambia’s health ministry and consisted of five clinicians from local hospitals, two WHO officials, and four consultants from Senegal, Finland, and the UK. It was chaired by Abdou Niang, a nephrologist and professor at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Senegal. Members met for a week in December, and Hoppu said the report was submitted to the health ministry sometime around February. It’s unclear why the report has not been made public.

At the time the committee convened in December, Gambian authorities had logged 70 deaths of children suffering from AKI. Of those, the committee couldn’t get detailed information on 13, and it concluded that one death wasn’t consistent with AKI. That left 56 deaths that it examined in detail. The children in this group were about two years old on average, the committee report said.

In only four of the 56 cases did the committee find a possible alternative or contributing cause, such as Covid-19 or severe malaria. That left the 22 it tied to consumption of Maiden drugs, and 30 others where consumption of the drugs wasn’t established but the symptoms were consistent with exposure to the contaminants and no alternative cause was found. The report noted that parents can’t always recall the brand of medications they give their children. 

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News Network
April 18,2025

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The US military has struck the western Yemeni oil port of Ras Isa, leaving dozens of workers and paramedics dead, and dozens more injured.

The facility in Hudaydah governorate was hit at least two times on Thursday night, with the second strike coming as civil defense and rescue teams were extinguishing fires and recovering victims. The second attack killed at least five paramedics.

The Palestinian Information Center and al-Manar TV now report that at least 38 people have been killed in that attack, while 102 others injured.

The Yemeni government slammed the attack as a clear war crime aimed at supporting the Zionist regime and enabling it to continue the Gaza genocide.

It said the strikes prove that the US deliberately attacks civilian infrastructure in Yemen with false justifications.

The government vowed that this crime would not pass without painful punishment, and the US would reap nothing but humiliating defeat and failure.

The US military claimed the port was a source of fuel for the Ansarullah resistance movement.

The governorates of Sana'a, al-Bayda and Hudaydah were also hit with multiple strikes.

The United States intensified its deadly attacks on the country last month at President Donald Trump’s direct orders.

Washington claims the raids are strictly aimed at protecting shipping activity around Yemen, alleging that the regional waterways’ maritime security had been endangered by Sana’a.

Yemeni officials have, however, roundly rejected such claims, underlining that the country only targeted vessels belonging to the Israeli regime and ships taking supplies to it.

The operations implemented by Yemen’s Armed Forces began in October 2023, when the Israeli regime, the US’s most cherished regional ally, began taking the Gaza Strip under a genocidal war.

More than 51,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed as a result of the warfare, which receives hugely enhanced and unstinting arms support on the part of Washington.

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News Network
April 16,2025

New Delhi, The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to entertain petitions filed by the NIA against the bail granted to 17 Popular Front of India members in the 2022 murder case of RSS leader Srinivasan in Kerala's Palakkad district.

A bench comprising Justices Abhay S Oka and N Kotiswar Singh noted that the Kerala High Court order granting bail to the accused is one-year-old and the HC has the power to cancel bail if the conditions are violated.

"Our attention is invited to observation made in the last part of the impugned order by which high court has reserved liberty to the petitioners to apply to special court for cancellation of bail.

"Therefore, the petitioners can always apply to the special court for cancellation of bail on the grounds which are set out in the affidavits filed in these petitions. In fact the special court will be the more appropriate court," the bench said.

The top court said the agency can satisfy the special court about the breach of terms and conditions of grant of bail by producing materials against the accused.

"Therefore, at this stage we decline to entertain the special leave petitions with liberty to the petitioners to move the special court/high court for cancellation of bail. Needless to say that if the prayer made by petitioner does not succeed before the special court/high court remedies of the petitioners remain open.

"We make it clear that as and when application is made for cancellation of bail the special court or high court should not be influenced by the fact that this court has declined to entertain the present special leave petitions," the bench said.

During the hearing, Additional Solicitor General Raja Thakare, appearing for the NIA, sought cancellation of the bail and submitted that the accused have violated the bail conditions and have contacted the witnesses.

The Kerala High Court on June 25, 2024 granted bail to the 17 accused PFI members, who are also facing trial for allegedly instigating communal violence in the state and other parts of the country.

Granting bail to 17 of the 26 accused, the high court imposed stringent conditions, which include sharing their cellphone numbers and real-time GPS locations with the investigating officer.

Aside from that, the accused were ordered not to leave Kerala, surrender their passports and keep their cellphones charged and active round-the-clock.

It had directed the 17 to "present themselves before the special court which shall enlarge them on bail on such conditions as the special court may deem necessary".

Initially, 51 persons were arraigned as accused in connection with the murder of Srinivasan on April 16, 2022. One among those held died while seven others are absconding.

Chargesheets against the remaining persons were filed in two phases in July and December, 2022.

While police was investigating the murder, the Centre received information that the office bearers and cadres of the Popular Front of India and its affiliates in Kerala had conspired to instigate communal violence and radicalise its cadres to commit terrorist acts in Kerala and other parts of the country, the high court noted in its order.

Therefore, the Centre in September, 2022 directed the National Investigation Agency to take up and probe the case against the accused.

On December 19, 2022, the Centre, referring to Srinivasan's death, opined there was a larger conspiracy hatched by the leaders of the PFI "which has grave national and international ramifications" that needed to be "thoroughly investigated to unearth the wider conspiracy and to identify the other accused".

The Centre directed the NIA to take up the probe in the murder case as well, and the agency filed its consolidated chargesheet in 2023 with two supplementary chargesheets later.

Immediately after the respective NIA chargesheets were filed before the special court, the accused moved for bail.

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News Network
April 9,2025

Mangaluru: A routine midnight tea run turned into a horrifying tragedy when a motorcycle carrying three young men — in clear violation of traffic rules — slammed into an open divider on National Highway 66 at SKS Junction in the early hours of April 8. Two of them lost their lives, while the third is recovering from injuries.

The victims have been identified as Sankeerth, who was riding the motorcycle (KL-58-Q-6381), and Dhanurved C, the first pillion rider. Sibi Sam, the second pillion rider, was injured but survived the crash.

According to the FIR registered at the Traffic East Police Station (Crime No. 48/2025), the friends had set out from Lohith Nagar around 2:30 am, heading towards Pumpwell for tea. While Rohan Joby and Meghnath rode separately on a different bike (KL-13-AH-2388), Sankeerth was accompanied by two pillion riders — a clear case of triple riding, which is both illegal and dangerous.

As they sped along NH-66, Sankeerth reportedly lost control near SKS Junction and collided with the edge of an open road divider at approximately 2:50 am. The impact threw all three men onto the highway with violent force.

Sankeerth and Dhanurved suffered critical head and facial injuries and died while being rushed to the hospital. Sibi Sam is undergoing treatment for his injuries.

The FIR invokes Sections 281, 125(a), 106(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, and 128(a) read with 177 of the Motor Vehicles Act, which include provisions related to rash driving and traffic violations.

The police have launched a full investigation. The accident has reignited public concern about reckless driving, triple riding, and the hazards posed by poorly maintained road dividers, especially during low-visibility hours.

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