Anirudh, who was three years old, was last seen on camera lying motionless on a hospital bed with lines wrapped around his hands.
When he recovers, his family can be seen frantically attempting to pull him while also discussing the games.
On January 10, 2020, three days later, the baby passed away in the clinic.
He had been unable to ejaculate for a fortnight prior to his passing due to diarrhoea and vomiting. His parents claim that these symptoms started after they prescribed him with cough medicine to treat a temperature and chest infection. They had purchased the medicine over the counter from the nearby chemist in Ramnagar, the small town in the north Indian region of Jammu where they live.
Anirudh’s kidneys were damaged, according to medical doctors, and his body had extremely high levels of creatine, a waste product that is typically filtered out by the kidney system.
His parents claim that the cough syrup was the cause of his death; according to local pharmaceutical power officials, tests revealed that it contained significant amounts of diethyl glycol, a poisonous substance that, when consumed, could result in kidney failure and death.
The baby endured a great deal of suffering, according to his mother Veena Kumari. He struggled to eat, was unable to open his eyes, and his face and body were swollen.
At least 12 kids, all under the age of five, reportedly perished in Ramnagar between December 2019 and January 2020 after consuming the sneeze medicine. The death toll may get higher, according to protesters.
The owner of Digital Vision, which produced the sneeze treatments, Parshottam Goyal, disputes that their medication was to blame for the fatalities.
” Why do we murder one’s kids?” Babies live in our homes as well. He told the BBC,” We make medicines, not toxicant.”
Some parents claim that before they passed away, their kids displayed symptoms similar to those seen in kids in Uzbekistan and The Gambia.
India is the largest general drug exporter in the world, meeting many of developing nations’ health needs. However, the incidents in The Gambia and Uzbekistan garnered global attention and sparked concerns about the pharmaceutical industry’s quality norms in India.
Health activists in India claim they have long worked to raise awareness of weak producing procedures and regulatory oversight in the booming sector.
The first case of diethyl methanol poisoning in India was documented in 1972, when 15 babies perished in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, according to health specialist Dinesh Thakur and activist Prashant Reddy.
They claim that since then,” size poisoning events” have occurred in a number of American states, adding that the death charges may be much higher due to the difficulty of diagnosing diethylene ethanol toxicity.
According to the authors, businesses typically don’t” check either the natural components or the final preparation before shipping it to industry.”
But, American authorities claim that the incidents in Ramnagar are isolated occurrences.
You may say that India’s full pharmaceutical industry is not doing well based on distortion and a few batches, according to Udaya Bhaskar, director standard of the Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council of India.
Police in the Ramnagar situation took two years to bring charges against five persons, including the scientist who sold the sugar and three Digital Vision employees. The case is currently being heard in a nearby judge. A senior city police national declined the BBC’s request for an interview.
In 2020, Digital Vision’s manufacturing facility in Ramnagar was shut down for six months before being reopened after a judge gave the go-ahead for it to resume operations.
The kids claim that they want steps taken against those who are to blame for their children’s incidents.
” We desire fairness. Murfa Biwi, whose three-year-old son Irfan passed away 10 times after consuming the sugar, says,” We want the murders to be punished.”
” The patients passed away without cause.” Sukesh Khajuria, an advocate in Jammu who is assisting the families in their struggle, claims that the company and medicine control officials failed to carry out their duties.
There wouldn’t have been any incidents in the Gambia if government authorities had carried out their duties, he continues.
However, medication power officials insist that they put a lot of effort into delivering justice.
According to Jammu and Kashmir drug control Lotika Khajuria, samples of the cough syrup gathered in Ramnagar and sent for tests to a laboratory in Chandigarh contained” more than 34 % diethylene glycol.” According to Ms. Khajuria, the samples’ results were verified by another facility in Kolkata.
A group of specialists under the direction of pediatrician Bhavneet Bharati who looked into the murders came to the same conclusion.
” In some cases, several organs, including the brain, heart, and lungs, were affected by the toxins, which mostly failed their kidneys.” A vent had to be placed on some of them. According to Ms. Bharati, some people passed away while others were left with severe disability.
Pawan Kumar, who was 15 weeks old when he ingested the same cough medicine, is one of the individuals. He spent three months in the hospital before going back, and he is still receiving treatment.
His father, Shambhu Ram, claims that” His hearing has diminished, his listening capacity has drastically decreased, and he has high blood pressure.”
The people request financial support from the government for the care of their kids.
Check out the BBC’s more India-related reports:
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- China advises India to” be calm” during border function column.
- What has the Indian wanderer been doing there?
- Gurkhas’ annoyance over the American army’s new getting strategy