A pharmaceutical company, Maiden Pharmaceuticals, whose cough syrups have been associated with the deaths of children in Gambia, has refuted allegations of tampering with test samples or bribing officials to do so.
The denial from India’s Maiden Pharmaceuticals comes in response to an accusation made against it in a complaint currently under investigation by local health officials in India.
Authorities in the state of Haryana’s Food and Drug Administration announced on Friday that they were close to completing a probe into whether a state drug regulator was bribed to switch samples tested by the Indian government.
These samples contradicted the World Health Organization (WHO)’s findings of toxic substances in the cough syrups.
Maiden founder Naresh Kumar Goyal has vehemently denied the allegation. Goyal, as reported by Reuters, stated that a competitor was behind the complaint but did not disclose their identity.
The WHO has linked syrups made by Maiden to the deaths of 70 children in Gambia.
These deaths in the Gambia, attributed to kidney-related problems between July and October last year after consuming the cough syrup, were not isolated incidents. Dozens of other children also died in Cameroon and Uzbekistan.