<\/p>\n
Less than a week later she was dead.<\/p>\n
The infant is one of 69 Gambian children to die of acute kidney failure since July, and is one of many cases linked to four Indian-made cough syrups.<\/p>\n
The widening scandal has highlighted flaws in the tiny West African nation\u2019s health-care system, in turn raising questions about potential loopholes in world pharmaceutical trade.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe could not eat anything and she was oozing blood from her mouth and nose,\u201d Keita, a 33-year-old carwash attendant, said, recounting his daughter\u2019s suffering.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt some point, I was praying for God to take her life.\u201d<\/p>\n
President Adama Barrow made a nationwide address on Saturday, after the police launched an inquiry and health authorities were told to suspend the import licence of a suspected company.<\/p>\n
Barrow also promised to update drugs-related laws and praised the work of the health ministry in preventing further deaths.<\/p>\n
But fear and anger are mounting, and the death toll is rising.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Barrow should sack the health minister, but instead of sacking him, he was praising the minister,\u201d said Keita, the grieving father.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want justice for these children.\u201d<\/p>\n
Social media has been swamped by criticism of the health-care system and by photos of the children who have died, most of whom were aged under five.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s time for the government to step up and stop these products,\u201d Mariama Kuyateh, a 30-year-old mother who lost her son Musa in September, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they don\u2019t, and other syrups enter the country, it will be terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n
No test lab<\/strong><\/p>\n The deaths were catapulted to global prominence last Wednesday when the UN\u2019s Health Organization (WHO) issued an alert over four syrups made by Maiden Pharmaceuticals of India.<\/p>\n Lab tests found \u201cunacceptable amounts\u201d of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol, the WHO said.<\/p>\n The toxic impact from the substances included \u201cacute kidney injury which may lead to death\u201d, the agency said.<\/p>\n On September 23, Gambian health authorities, after launching their own investigation in July, ordered a recall of all medicines containing paracetamol or promethazine syrup.<\/p>\n They have cited E.coli bacteria as a possible cause of the deaths.<\/p>\n India\u2019s health ministry said recently that it had been informed of the WHO\u2019s findings last month and was awaiting the results of its own lab tests on the four drugs.<\/p>\n Maiden Pharmaceuticals was not licensed to distribute the four products in India and had manufactured and exported them only to The Gambia, it said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is a usual practice that the importing country tests these imported products on quality parameters, and satisfies itself as to the quality of the products,\u201d the ministry said.<\/p>\n But The Gambia has no national laboratory to test for drug quality and food safety \u2013 a lack that Barrow on Saturday vowed to redress.<\/p>\n Maiden Pharmaceuticals did not respond to requests for comment after the WHO alert.<\/p>\n \u2018Failed miserably\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Domestic critics accuse Barrow of having failed to protect the public and standing by watchdogs who should have been sacked.<\/p>\n The opposition United Democratic Party (UDP) criticised Barrow\u2019s \u201cfive-minute address\u201d to a \u201ctraumatised nation left to wonder what other pharmaceuticals are on the market that may be fake or unsafe for use\u201d.<\/p>\n Nancy Jallow, of an NGO called Global Bridges, said she was appalled that top officials such as Health Minister Ahmadou Lamin Samateh and the head of the Medicines Control Agency, Markieu Janneh Kaira, were still in their jobs.<\/p>\n \u201cWe signed a social contract with Adama Barrow and his number one role is to protect the most vulnerable, and he has failed miserably,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She called for a halt on pharmaceutical imports \u201cuntil Gambia\u2019s government can build a facility that can test medications\u201d.<\/p>\n Others voices, including the Gambia Bar Association, have insisted that the inquiry be conducted by independent experts.<\/p>\n Weak health care <\/strong><\/p>\n Behind the political row is the reality of a country deep in poverty lacking many of the safeguards that elsewhere are taken for granted.<\/p>\n The Gambia is the smallest country in continental Africa, and nearly half its population lives below the poverty line, according to the Bank.<\/p>\n The country ranks a mere 174th out of 191 countries on the UN Human Development Index.<\/p>\n Its weak health institutions were hit hard by Covid, with a 2020 UN assessment saying the pandemic had \u201cexposed the shortcomings in the nation\u2019s health-care system\u201d.<\/p>\n The UN flagged limited expertise, a shortage of basic equipment and a chronic lack of health professionals.<\/p>\n According to Bank data, The Gambia in 2019 had just 0.1 physicians per 1 000 people \u2013 less than a twentieth of the numbers in Canada.<\/p>\n The Gambia\u2019s under-five mortality rate is 49.4 deaths per 1 000 live births, according to Unicef, compared to 3.7 deaths in Germany and 4.4 in France.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Less than a week later she was dead. The infant is one of 69 Gambian children to die of acute kidney failure since July, and is one of many cases linked to four Indian-made cough syrups. The widening scandal has highlighted flaws in the tiny West African nation\u2019s health-care system, in turn raising questions about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1223244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1223244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223244\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1223244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1223244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1223244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}