Indonesia has announced that the number of children with acute kidney failure has reached 324 after eating syrups containing harmful substances, of which 195 have died and 27 are still in hospital. The new balance sheet was published this Monday by the country’s Ministry of Health (7).
Indonesia has seen an increase in cases of acute kidney failure since August, leading to an extensive ban on sales and prescriptions of syrups and liquid drugs and an investigation.
Mohammad Syahril, spokesman for the Ministry of Health, said at a press conference that most of the victims were children under the age of five. The previous figure was 133 deaths as of October 21.
“Tests found that most of the deaths were attributed to syrups contaminated with excessive amounts of ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol, two chemicals used in industrial products,” Syahril said. Said.
So far, health authorities have imported 246 bottles of the antidote for patients, most of them supplied by Singapore and Australia. The Ministry of Health said these drugs have shown significant results.
Last month, the Indonesian Food and Drug Surveillance Authority (BPOM) named five syrups containing dangerously harmful ingredients and ordered that the products be removed from the market and destroyed.
The agency soon announced a list of 156 contamination-free syrups and asked parents and healthcare professionals not to use other liquid medicines that are not on this list.
police case
Police launched an investigation against three local pharmaceutical companies. Two of them temporarily lost their license to manufacture medicinal syrups.
Prior to this event, the Ministry of Health was treating two or five cases of acute renal failure per month.
Indonesia announced this increase in deaths shortly after a similar tragedy occurred in the West African city of Gambia, where 66 child deaths were recorded and an investigation was launched to determine whether these deaths were linked to imported syrups.
Earlier in October, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that it had found “unacceptable amounts” of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol in four Indian cough syrups that played a role in the deaths of these children in The Gambia.
(with information from AFP)
source: Noticias
