NEW DELHI

India has suspended the license of a pharma firm that manufactured a cough syrup linked to the death of at least 19 children in Uzbekistan, a senior official said on Thursday.

The country launched a probe last month after authorities in Uzbekistan said many children in the country died because of side effects of a cough syrup manufactured by an Indian pharmaceutical firm, Marion Biotech, located in Noida city in northern Uttar Pradesh state.

Subsequently, Indian Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said all manufacturing activities of Marion Biotech at the Noida unit have been stopped.

On Thursday evening, Ajay Kumar Jain, a top official of the Food Safety and Drug Administration Department in Uttar Pradesh, told Anadolu that the license of the pharma firm has been suspended.

“We had issued a show cause notice to the drug manufacturer, to which we didn't receive any response. We have now suspended the license of the drug firm,” he said, adding that further action will be taken as the investigation proceeds.

The World Health Organization in its medical alert on Wednesday also recommended not using two cough syrups made by Marion Biotech.

“The two products are Ambronol syrup and DOK-1 Max syrup,” the WHO said, adding that the stated manufacturer of both products is Marion Biotech Private Limited, which has, to date, not provided guarantees to WHO on the safety and quality of these products.

The Uzbek Health Ministry last month reported that 19 children with the acute respiratory disease died after taking Doc-1 Max syrup. The ministry also said that Dok-1 Max tablets and syrups have been withdrawn from sale nationwide, urging parents to purchase medicines only by prescription.

The recent incident followed a similar incident that took place in Gambia in October when World Health Organization issued a medical alert for four contaminated medicines linked with acute kidney injuries and 66 child deaths. The medicines were cough and cold syrups produced by Maiden Pharmaceuticals Limited in India.

However, last month, the Indian Parliament was informed by the Health Ministry that "control samples" of the drugs from the manufacturing unit were drawn and sent for test and analysis.

"As per the report of the government analyst, the samples have been declared to be of standard quality," the ministry had said.