Liberia joined a list of countries that have found contaminated medicine originating from India’s $42 billion drugmaking industry.
The West African nation confiscated 250 cartons of Para Clear, a children’s paracetamol syrup made by an Ahmedabad-based manufacturer, after testing showed it contained toxic ethylene glycol, according to Liberian and Nigerian health officials.
The drugmaker, Curis Lifesciences Pvt. Ltd., didn’t respond to a request for comment sent to its email address. Bloomberg was unable to obtain a phone number for the company.
Liberia’s Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Authority “quarantined” the medicine last September, Keturah Smith-Chineh, who heads the regulator, said in a response to questions sent by text message. The medicine failed local tests and was sent for further testing in nearby Nigeria after the importer challenged the results, she said.
Nigeria’s National Agency for Food & Drug Administration and Control identified the tainted drug in a June 12 statement, providing a picture of its packaging in a public alert notice. It also warned that ethylene glycol is “toxic to humans when consumed and can prove fatal.”
No deaths or illnesses were reported in Liberia, Smith-Chineh said.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has marketed his country as a “pharmacy of the world,” thanks to an abundance of generic-drug manufacturers that operate there. But there have been multiple medical scandals in recent years.
Contaminated syrups from India were implicated in more than 80 child deaths in Uzbekistan and Gambia last year. In April, the World Health Organization also found tainted syrup in the Pacific island nations of Marshall Islands and Micronesia produced by an Indian drugmaker. No illnesses were reported in those cases.
(Updates with name of manufacturer in third paragraph.)
Author: Festus Poquie and Zachary R. Mider
