On Monday, Uzbekistan gave punishments to 21 people involved in the deaths of 68 children who took a contaminated cough syrup from India.
Between 2022 and 2023, at least 86 children in Uzbekistan were poisoned, and 68 of them died.
Singh Raghvendra Pratap, an Indian citizen and the director of a company that imported the syrup called Doc-1 Max, received the harshest sentence of 20 years. He was found guilty of corruption, tax fraud, and forgery by the Supreme Court of Uzbekistan.
Tests on the syrup showed that it was contaminated with harmful substances called diethylene glycol or ethylene glycol. These substances are toxic and can be deadly, even in small amounts, according to the World Health Organization.
Afterwards, India revoked the production license of Marion Biotech, the company that made the cough syrups.
During the same time, in Gambia, at least 70 children died from acute kidney failure after consuming a different syrup imported from India.
In Indonesia, more than 200 children died between 2022 and 2023 because of another syrup that came in similar containers.
