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Gambia in ‘advanced’ stage of legal action against Indian toxic cough syrup maker

Published

9 months ago

July 22, 2023

The Gambian government has revealed that it is in a “far advanced” stage of legal action against Indian drugmaker, Maiden Pharmaceuticals, producers of a cough syrup that killed scores of children last year.

The legal battle will also include local distributors of the toxic cough syrups.

Gambia’s government said in the statement that it was pursuing potential redress through engagement with the Government of India and “is currently benefiting from legal advice from a top-tier international law firm.”

The World Bank is also assisting the Gambia in the construction of a laboratory. “There is an urgent need for a quality control laboratory to conduct proper testing on all medications and related items imported into the nation,” the statement read.

Barely a month after the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a global alert over four brands of cough syrups, saying they could be linked to acute kidney damage, reports emerged of deaths of babies after the use of some of the WHO-marked drugs.

Last year, acute renal damage claimed at least 70 children in the Gambia, the majority of whom were under 5 years old. The deaths, according to a government task group that looked into them, were “a direct result” of tainted Indian-imported cough and cold medicines.

Meanwhile, the families of 20 of the children have already sued the two companies, as well as Gambian authorities, and have rejected monetary compensation. Last year, the chairperson of the grieving families, Ebrima Sanyang said the $20,000 (£17,000) offered by the Ministry of Gender was “an insult to the victims”.

In the meantime, Indian pharmaceutical company, Maiden Pharmaceuticals has denied any wrongdoing, while the Indian government claims tests on the drugs revealed they were not tainted.

Related Topics:Cough Syrup Featured Gambia Indian Pharmaceutical

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VenturesNow

World Bank grants Malawi $57.6 million for food crisis

Published

6 hours ago

April 27, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

As a response to its food crisis, the World Bank said on Friday that it would give Malawi $57.6 million in “quick release” grants.

“This support comes in the context of the severe food crisis the country is suffering due to El Niño conditions in the wider southern Africa region,” the World Bank said in a statement.

“A series of intense disaster events over the last few years has left almost no time for the country to recover and has resulted in a severe erosion of food security at the national level.”

Malawi is one of the least developed countries in the world. It is ranked 170 out of 187 countries in the 2010 Human Development Index. Almost 16 million people live there, and 90% of them make less than $2 a day. That’s 53% of the total population.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says that 46,000 children in Malawi are seriously malnourished. In 2023, UNICEF said that more than 500,000 Malawian children were at risk of not getting enough food.

Now, Malawi has a lot of programs in place to deal with things like poverty, and climate change, and to make the business and agriculture more diverse.

VenturesNow

Nigerian oil regulator implements regional fuel standards

Published

1 day ago

April 26, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Nigeria’s oil authority has clarified that the recent changes to diesel fuel sulphur content standards are part of a regional effort to make things more uniform and are not meant to loosen rules for local refineries.

A report from S&P Global last week said that the West African fuel market had changed a lot after Nigeria raised the maximum diesel sulphur content from 200 parts per million (ppm) to around 650 ppm. This caused worries that the country might be lowering its standards to allow diesel made in Nigeria that is higher than the 200 ppm limit.

The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), on the other hand, said it was only following a 2020 decision by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) that all of the regions had to slowly switch to better fuels.

Fuels that have a lot of sulfur can hurt engines and make the air dirty. As of right now, the ECOWAS rule lets locally-made fuel have more sulfur until January 2025. After that, a standard of less than 5 parts per million will be used for all oil, whether it is refined in West Africa or brought in from another country.

Farouk Ahmed, the head of the NMDPRA, told Reuters that the new limits are in line with ECOWAS’s choice to require stricter fuel specifications. The new rules will go into effect in January 2021 for non-ECOWAS imports and January 2025 for ECOWAS refineries.

“We are merely implementing the ECOWAS decision adopted in 2020,” Ahmed said.

“So a local refinery with a 650 ppm sulphur in its product is permissible and safe under the ECOWAS rule until January next year where a uniform standard would apply to both the locally refined and imported products outside West Africa”, Ahmed said.

Ahmed said that importers were told that the amount of sulphur allowed was going down, from 300 parts per million in February to 200 parts per million this month. This was done long before the huge Dangote refinery started providing diesel.

Diesel with a sulphur level of between 1,500 ppm and 3,000 ppm could be brought in by importers before.

The switch to cleaner fuels is in line with efforts to protect the environment around the world and makes sure that all area refiners have the same chances.

Nigeria recently had its worst blackout in decades because of a problem with its energy supply. The high cost of alternative energy sources has been a huge problem for both businesses and individuals, with the price of diesel being the most affordable choice for businesses.