Nigeria’s killer syrup causes panic in Africa

By Rose Wanjiku

Do all drug companies test their products before releasing them to the market?

This is the question many parents are grappling with following the death of about 84 children since November in Nigeria after taking a syrup commonly known as My Pinkin Baby Teething Mixture.

The dead were aged between two months and seven years and least 111 children had been taken ill since the tainted batch hit shelves in mid-November. The children died of organ failure.

The mixture was sold as syrup to relieve infant teething problems, cough, pain, restlessness and fever symptoms.

My Pinkin means my baby in Pidgin.

Many bottles of the paracetamol-based formula were found to have a high concentration of diethylene glycol, a chemical commonly found in anti-freeze and brake fluid and sometimes used illegally as a cheaper alternative to glycerin, which thickens toothpaste. It is also used as a textile softener.

The chemical has been implicated in mass poisoning in South Africa, India, Nigeria, Argentina, Haiti, Bangladesh and Panama.

Exposure can cause kidney and liver damage and may be fatal.

Nigerian health workers are on the lookout for the syrup that may be on sale in the country with more than 140 million people.

Due to the expansiveness of the country, there is fear that many bottles may not be discovered

It was unclear if any of the teething formula had been shipped overseas, but most products made in Nigeria are for domestic market.

Several officials of the Lagos-based pharmaceutical maker are under arrest, along with several other suspects accused of helping provide the poisonous ingredient.

Nigeria has been plagued by tainted, fake or untested drugs since it gained independence from Britain in 1960. About 200 babies died in 1990 under similar circumstances, also from diethylene glycol.

The teething syrup is not the only baby drug scandal to hit Nigeria. In 2001, another drug by American drug maker, Pfizer killed about 11 children. The company had gone to test its meningitis antibiotic drug, Trovan, even after concerns had been raised about its safety. The drug was banned in America and Europe in 1999.

An American court has allowed the affected families to sue Pfizer. The lawsuit, filed in a US District Court on Wednesday, seeks unspecified damages on behalf of 30 children who took part in trials in Kano, in northern Nigeria.