WHO push­es for ac­tion by man­u­fac­tur­ers and gov­ern­ments af­ter warn­ings over con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed cough syrups

Af­ter hand­ing out mul­ti­ple alerts over con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed cough syrups, the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) is now step­ping up the pres­sure on man­u­fac­tur­ers and gov­ern­ments to pre­vent fur­ther in­stances of harm.

WHO re­leased a state­ment on Mon­day is­su­ing an “ur­gent call to ac­tion” for coun­tries and man­u­fac­tur­ers to pre­vent and re­spond to is­sues of sub­stan­dard and fal­si­fied prod­ucts. In the past four months, coun­tries in Asia and Africa have re­port­ed in­ci­dents in which cough syrups meant for chil­dren had con­firmed or sus­pect­ed con­t­a­m­i­na­tion with “high lev­els” of di­eth­yl­ene gly­col (DEG) or eth­yl­ene gly­col, both tox­ic sub­stances that are main­ly used in an­tifreeze or as in­dus­tri­al sol­vents.

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