Nepal has banned the import of medicines from 16 Indian pharmaceutical firms, including the famous yoga guru Baba Ramdev's Divya Pharmacy.
The country's drug authority told Sputnik that the companies violated WHO’s “good manufacturing practices”. The decision was made after inspections and audits had been conducted.
“We inspected the manufacturing facilities of these firms, which had applied to export their products to Nepal earlier this year. After the inspection and audit, we found they did not comply with WHO standards,” KC Santosh, spokesman of the Department of Drug Administration, told Sputnik.
Besides Divya Pharmacy, the other companies on the list are: Radiant Pharmaceuticals., Mercury Laboratories., Alliaance Biotech, Captab Biotec, Aglowmed, ZEE Laboratories, Daffodills Pharmaceuticals, GLS Pharma, Unijules Life Sciences, Concept Pharmaceuticals, Shree Anand Life Sciences, IPCA Laboratories, Cadila Healthcare (now Zydus Lifesciences), Dial Pharmaceuticals, Aglowmed and Mackur Laboratories.
The spokesman clarified that they can still approach the Nepalese drug authority for a review but until then, imports will not be allowed, Santosh said.
Cough Syrup Tragedy in Gambia
The move comes after an alert was issued by the UN health body in October in the wake of 66 children dying in Gambia, allegedly after taking Indian-made cough syrups.
The alert said that four toxic medicines produced by Maiden Pharmaceuticals in India were "potentially linked" with the acute kidney injuries among those children.
The Indian Health Ministry, however, said this month that the control samples from Maiden Pharma proved to be of standard quality.
“The statement issued by the WHO in October 2022 was unfortunately amplified by the global media which led to a narrative being built internationally targeting the quality of Indian pharmaceutical products,” Dr Venugopal Somani, Drug Controller General of India chief, said in a hard-hitting letter to the WHO.
This, in turn, adversely affected the image of India’s pharmaceutical products around the world, and caused irreparable damage to the supply chain of pharmaceutical products, Somani added.