NEW DELHI: Indian police have arrested the owner of Sresan Pharmaceutical Manufacturer, the company behind a cough syrup linked to the deaths of at least 17 children in Madhya Pradesh, a senior regional police official confirmed on Thursday.
The victims—all under the age of five—died over the past month after consuming the syrup, which was found to contain toxic levels of diethylene glycol, nearly 500 times above the permissible limit.
The deaths have been traced to Sresan Pharma’s ‘Coldrif’ syrup, which has since been banned in several parts of India following laboratory tests that confirmed the presence of the hazardous chemical last Thursday.
- Ranganathan, owner of the Tamil Nadu-based company, was arrested on Wednesday in Chennai and is expected to be presented in court, the police official added.
Following his court appearance, S. Ranganathan will be transferred from his home state of Tamil Nadu to Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh, according to Chhindwara Superintendent of Police Ajay Pandey, speaking to Reuters.
Indian law requires pharmaceutical companies to test every batch of raw materials as well as the final product before distribution. Since 2023, additional testing at government-approved laboratories has been mandated for cough syrup exports, after the deaths of over 10 children in The Gambia, Uzbekistan, and Cameroon were linked to contaminated Indian-made syrups.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said the recent incident exposes a “regulatory gap” in India’s oversight of domestically sold medicines, and warned that some syrups may have been exported through unofficial channels.
India supplies 40% of generic medicines used in the US, and more than 90% of all medicines in many African nations.
