<\/p>\n
Banjul: Gambia has ordered importers and shops to suspend sales of all brands of paracetamol syrup while the government investigates a suspected link between the medicine and the deaths of dozens of children.<\/p>\n
Last Thursday, the head of the West African country\u2019s health service said it had launched the probe after a spike in cases of acute kidney injury among children under the age of five was detected in late July.<\/p>\n
The medicines regulator, known as the Medicines Control Agency (MCA), said there was insufficient data to warrant a general ban on paracetamol syrups, a painkiller often used to treat fevers in children.<\/p>\n
The children suffered symptoms that included an inability to pass urine, as well as fever and vomiting that quickly led to kidney failure.<\/p>\n
It did not name any -rands, but said some samples had been sent abroad for quality control testing.<\/p>\n
Last week, World Health Organization officials said the evidence pointed not to paracetamol but to an infectious origin such as polluted water, but emphasised there were many unanswered questions. <\/p>\n
Autopsies from the children\u2019s death \u2018suggest the possibility of paracetamol intakes\u2019, says Health Services director Mustapha Bittaye<\/p>\n
In August,Gambia\u2019s health ministry in August raised the alarm over the death in similar circumstances of 28 infants from suspected E.coli.<\/p>\n
The conditions of the children before they died had deteriorated to kidney failures, vomiting, difficulty urinating and fever.<\/p>\n
Gambia\u2019s health infrastructure is known to be fragile.<\/p>\n