Despite the alert, it took the authorities in India quite a time to react; it was days after the WHO warning that the Government of Haryana got into action where the authorities, in a way, got pranked when they tried to reach the spot which was given as an office address of the company—they found nothing there in the name of the office of the pharmaceutical company. The same again points towards something being wrong with the system where the concerned authorities did not even bother to verify the credentials of the company before issuing the necessary approvals.
The WHO issued the alert on October 5 and sought increased surveillance and diligence within the supply chains of countries and regions likely to be affected by these products, but it took the Health Minister nearly a week to respond in the matter where the action should have been quick. The ministry has now formed a high-level panel that will now study all aspects related to the death of Gambian infants. More so, the Ministry has put it back on WHO for not sharing with India critical reports on the matter.
Fair enough on the part of the Health Ministry which should have received these reports from the WHO by now, but that does not mean that they can act in the way they have so far. No matter what the panel has been formed, ideally, it should have come, apart from other necessary actions, much earlier because the matter is about substandard pediatric medicines and no Government on earth would take such a matter casually. The matter becomes more serious when a drug made in India leads to deaths in some other country.
India just cannot look the other way in this matter. It needs to ensure action, no matter what because it has a responsibility of ensuring the quality of products, especially the medical products, which are being supplied to other countries from India. Back home, it needs to make the system of quality control in the medical products more robust, especially, by having an eye on the ghost companies, identifying them, and making sure that such entities are not allowed to even exist in the sector like pharmaceuticals. The burden of responsibilities in this matter is more and India needs to set an example of it without delay.
