Indian cough syrup death toll reaches 26

With the number of child deaths linked to contaminated cough syrup in India now put at 26, the WHO has issued an alert warning against the use and distribution of three products.

One of them – Sresan Pharma's Coldrif – is already in the sights of law enforcement and regulatory authorities, but the WHO's latest warning now also covers Rednex Pharmaceuticals' RespiFresh TR and Shape Pharma's ReLife product.

In its alert (PDF), the WHO notes that India's Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) has confirmed that relevant state authorities have ordered an immediate halt to production at manufacturing sites for the cough syrups and have suspended product authorisations for them.

At the moment, the poisonings seem to be confined to India, according to the UN's health agency, which said that CDSCO had told it that "none of the contaminated medicines have been exported from India and there is currently no evidence of illegal export."

"Nevertheless, WHO encourages National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) to consider targeted market surveillance, with particular attention to informal and unregulated supply chains where products may circulate undetected," it added.

The owner of Sresan Pharma was arrested last week and the company shut down after it was confirmed that Coldrif contained toxic diethylene glycol (DEG), a colourless and odourless liquid with a sweet taste linked to hundreds of fatalities in recent years, usually as a result of acute kidney failure.