Cough syrup deaths: Drug company's medical representative held in MP

Police have arrested a medical representative of the company that manufactured the allegedly toxic Coldrif syrup, suspected to have caused the deaths of 24 children in Madhya Pradesh, an official said on Tuesday.

The now-banned adulterated cough syrup was manufactured by the Tamil Nadu-based Sresan Pharma Company. Following the deaths, the Tamil Nadu government revoked the manufacturing licence of Sresan Pharma and shut down the company.

The company's medical representative, Satish Verma, was arrested from Chhindwara on the intervening night of Sunday-Monday and was being questioned, Sub Divisional Officer of Police, Parasia, Jitendra Kumar Jaat said.

The police have so far arrested six persons in the case, including the pharma company's owner G Ranganathan and Dr Praveen Soni, who prescribed the syrup to children.

So far, 24 children from MP, mostly under the age of 5, have died due to suspected kidney failure after being administered Coldrif syrup. Besides, at least three children have died after consuming the cough syrup in Rajasthan.

The tragedy prompted the World Health Organisation (WHO) to issue an alert against three "substandard" oral cough syrups identified in India — Coldrif, Respifresh TR and ReLife.

On October 2, the Tamil Nadu director of drugs control found that the Coldrif samples were not of standard quality.

Three days later, Madhya Pradesh also reported that one sample of Coldrif had 48.6 per cent of diethylene glycol, far exceeding the 0.1 per cent permissible limit as an impurity.

The MP police subsequently arrested Chhindwara-based Dr Praveen Soni for alleged negligence.

Following the deaths of children, the formulation has been banned in Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Puducherry, West Bengal and Delhi.