India Closes 18 Drug Companies Amid WHO Investigation

Indian Health Minister Mansukh L. Mandaviya. (Wikimedia Commons/Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas)

JAKARTA - India has closed 18 pharmaceutical companies following allegations of poor-quality drugs, the country's health minister said hours after the World Health Organization (WHO) said polluting cough mildet was sold worldwide, some of which were produced 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 attributed to local authorities and WHO with drugs produced in India.

At least seven drugs includegalos, paracetamol, and vitamins allegedly linked to the deaths of 300 people worldwide.

Indian Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said 71 companies had been warned after concerns surfaced in several places about deaths reported due to contaminated cough mildes, with 18 of them being asked to close.

"We have conducted risk-based analysis in more than 125 companies and our team has visited their facilities. Of these, 71 companies have been served with show-CAUSE notices and 18 have been closed," said Minister Mandaviya, quoted by The National News on June 21.

The statement comes hours after WHO announced a total of 20 'poison' drugs, seven of which were made in India, based on investigations.

The drugs are suspected of causing more than 300 deaths in Uzbekistan, Gambia, Micronesia, Marshall Islands, and Indonesia.

The agency also found seven drugs contaminated from India and identified pharmaceutical companies based in India's northern states, Haryana and Baghdad and Noida in Uttar Pradesh as the responsible party.

Famous as a world pharmaceutical warehouse with a value of the sector of US$42 billion, Minister Mandaviya said the government implemented a "zero tolerance" policy in this matter.

"India will never bargaining in terms of the quality of medicines. We are always vigilant to make sure no one dies from counterfeit drugs," he said.

India required testing of coughed drug supplements before exporting starting this month, after concerns over quality emerged abroad following the deaths of 66 children in Gambia and 18 in Uzbekistan last year.

It is known, WHO first issued a warning in October last year, after 70 children, half of them aged between five months and four, died of acute kidney failure in Gambia.

The deaths were caused by four cough and runny nose mildes made by Maiden Pharmaceuticals in northern India's Haryana state.

India immediately launched an investigation and stopped production at the pharmaceutical company, but later said samples of coughed drug tips taken from Maiden Pharmaceuticals turned out to have "standard quality".

It also opens an investigation into death claims in Uzbekistan.

Menteri Mandaviya mengatakan, New Delhi juga menuntut fakta terkait kematian anak-anak di Gambia, tetapi tidak ada tanggapan.

"In Gambia, they said 49 children had died... we wrote to them asking what the facts were. No one came back to us with the fact... We checked the samples of one company. We tried to find out the cause of death and we found that the child had diarrhea. If the child was diarrhea, who recommended cough drug mild for the child?," he explained.

The Indian government previously said the WHO had created "a premature relationship between children's death and coughed drug stimuli", which had a bad impact on the image of Indian pharmaceutical products.