(Photo: WHO)
By Mustapha Ceesay
The Gambia’s Ministry of Health is recalling Paracetamol syrups, Promethazine syrups, and Cough syrups, linked to 66 children’s deaths in the country.
“The Ministry of Health in collaboration with the Medicine Control Agency, and The Gambia Red Cross Society today (5th October 2022) commenced the medicines recall of Paracetamol syrups, Promethazine syrups, and Cough syrups,” the health ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
The statement added that the public is cooperating and the exercise planned to last for 5 days is ‘progressing smoothly’.
The recall by the Gambian authorities followed the medical alert by the World Health Organisation that the syrups contained dangerous substances that can cause kidney damage.
The exercise came in the West African country, after 66 children died of Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) outbreak, a rare condition that affects children under 5 believed to have been caused by the medicines.
The medicines are manufactured by Maiden Pharmaceuticals in India, and the Indian health ministry has told the BBC that it has launched an investigation into the matter; after the World Health Organization said the syrups were linked to 66 child deaths in The Gambia.