India shuts down 18 drug companies amid WHO probe

The South Asian nation is known as the 'pharmacy of the world', with its pharma sector valued at $42 billion

India's Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Tuesday said the government had ordered 18 pharmaceutical companies to shut down and sent notices to 71 other companies. EPA

India has closed down 18 pharmaceutical companies following accusations of poor quality medicine, the country's heath minister said, hours after the World Health Organisation said tainted cough syrups were being sold worldwide, including some manufactured in India.

India, known as the world's pharmacy, has been under increasing scrutiny since last year following a series of deaths in Gambia and Uzbekistan that local authorities and the WHO linked to medicines manufactured in India.

At least seven medicines including syrups, paracetamol and vitamins were suspected to be linked to the deaths of 300 people worldwide.

India’s Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said 71 companies were given show-cause notices following concerns raised in some quarters about reported deaths due to contaminated cough syrups and 18 of them have been asked to close down.

“We have conducted risk-based analysis at more than 125 companies and our squads have visited their facilities. Of these, 71 companies have been served show-cause notices and 18 have been given closure notices,” Mr Mandaviya said.

The remarks came hours after the WHO flagged a total of 20 “toxic” medicines, seven of which are made in India, in its investigation. The medicines are suspected to have led to more than 300 deaths in Uzbekistan, Gambia, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Indonesia.

It also found seven contaminated medicines from India and identified pharmaceutical companies based in India’s northern state of Haryana and Punjab and Noida in Uttar Pradesh as being responsible.

The South Asian nation is known as the “pharmacy of the world”, with its pharmaceutical sector valued at $42 billion.

Mr Mandaviya said that his government was following a “zero tolerance” policy on the issue.

“India will never bargain on the quality of medicines. We are always alert to ensure no one dies of spurious drugs,” he said.

India made the testing of cough syrups mandatory before export starting this month, after quality concerns were raised abroad following the deaths of 66 and 18 children in Gambia and Uzbekistan, respectively, last year.

The WHO first issued an alert in October last year after 70 children, half of them between the ages of five months and four years, died of acute kidney failure in Gambia.

The deaths were blamed on four cough and cold syrups made by Maiden Pharmaceuticals in India's northern Haryana state.

India immediately launched an investigation and halted production at the pharmaceutical company, but later said that the samples of cough syrup taken from Maiden Pharmaceuticals were found to be of “standard quality”.

It also opened an investigation into the claims of the deaths in Uzbekistan.

Mr Mandaviya said that New Delhi had also demanded facts related to the death of children in Gambia but there was no response.

“In Gambia, they said 49 children have died … we wrote to them asking what the facts are. No one got back to us with the facts … We checked the samples of one company. We tried to find out the cause of death and we found that the child had diarrhoea. If a child had diarrhoea, who recommended cough syrup for that child?", he said.

The government had earlier said that the WHO had made a “premature link between the deaths of the children and cough syrups” that adversely affected the image of the Indian pharmaceutical products.