MP cough syrup deaths: ‘Family’s pharmacy’ comes under scanner amid probe against accused doctor

The move came as part of a wider investigation into the distribution of the toxic medicine prescribed by Dr. Praveen Soni.

After 15 children died from contaminated cough syrup in Madhya Pradesh’s Chhindwara district, state authorities have suspended the license of a medical store owned by a family member of Dr. Praveen Soni, the paediatrician who was accused of prescribing the cough syrup.

The move came as part of a wider investigation into the distribution of the toxic medicine prescribed by the paediatrician.

According to a report by The Indian Express, the Madhya Pradesh government is now investigating how a large batch of contaminated cough syrup ended up in Chhindwara district’s Parasia. Over 600 bottles of the contaminated cough syrup, as per the report, were dispatched from Jabalpur to Chhindwara, and a large batch of it left for Parasia.

So far, local authorities have traced and seized 400 cough syrups, of which 200 remain to be traced, with fears that they must already be in circulation.

Serious irregularities found

The office of the Food and Drugs Administration in Chhindwara cancelled the license of Apna Medical Stores located in Parasia following the discovery of “several irregularities”.

Licencing Authority Sharad Kumar Jain was quoted as saying that “an inspection of Apna Medical Stores, Parasia, was conducted on various parameters, during which serious irregularities were found under the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945."

“During the inspection, sales records were found incomplete, medicines were being sold in the absence of a registered pharmacist, and sales bills were not produced,” Jain said, adding that sespite being issued a show-cause notice by the licencing authority, “the proprietor failed to submit an explanation within the stipulated time.”

“The clinic owned by one family member is located on the ground floor of his home adjacent to his clinic. They have not been able to produce proper documentation of the contaminated cough syrup batch. We are probing ties of the local distributor of the cough syrup and Dr Soni’s family to see if there was a link between the two entities,” People familiar with the matter were quoted by The Indian Express as saying.