Cough syrup: Uzbekistan sentences Indian to 20 years in prison for 68 deaths
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Amid controversies surrounding Indian medicines exported to other countries, Uzbekistan on Monday sentenced an Indian national to a 20-year jail term for his alleged role in the death of 68 children after they consumed ‘contaminated’ cough syrups.
Raghvendra Pratap Singh and 20 other people linked to the case were handed out various sentences by the Central Asian country, according to the media reports.
Singh is the director of a company that exported the Doc-1 Max syrup to Uzbekistan. Altogether 86 children in Uzbekistan suffered poisoning due to the syrup between 2022 and 2023, of whom 68 died.
Following a six-month-long trial, the Supreme Court of Uzbekistan found Singh guilty of charges, including tax fraud and forgery.
According to the World Health Organization’s probe conducted on samples, toxic substances—diethylene glycol or ethylene glycol—were found in the syrups, which led to children’s deaths.
Noida-based pharmaceutical firm Marion Biotech, responsible for the alleged contaminated syrup production, faced license suspension over the issue in December 2022.
In January 2023, the WHO labeled Marion’s cough syrups as “substandard” and issued a medical product alert against its two items.
Before the Marion controversy, Haryana-based Maiden Pharmaceuticals was also linked to the deaths of 70 children in Gambia due to the intake of contaminated cough syrup.
In February 2023, Maiden Pharma founder Naresh Kumar Goel and Technical Director M K Sharma were sentenced to jail by a Haryana court for exporting substandard drugs to Vietnam a decade ago. The company was banned in Vietnam in 2014 for quality-related violations.
India’s pharma exports touched USD 24.5 billion in the financial year 2021-2022.
