Gambia Financial News

NEW DELHI : The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) Rajeev Raghuvanshi has granted permission to three National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL)- accredited private labs to conduct tests on cough syrups for exports. The private labs are: Bee Pharma Labs (Mumbai), Oasis Test House (Ahmedabad) and Shriram Institute for Industrial Research (Delhi). Prior to this, only government labs were authorised to test cough syrups for export.

NEW DELHI : The Union health ministry has proposed sweeping changes to its drug licensing programme, aiming for uniformity across India to boost drug safety, after cough syrups made in the country were allegedly linked to the deaths of children overseas, two people familiar with the development said. The proposal also follows a government expert panel emphasizing the need for uniform implementation of documentation and dossier-based approval processes for drugs manufactured in the country to ensure consistent quality and safety.

Bloomberg News purchased a sample of the syrup at a pharmacy in Baghdad in March and arranged a test by an independent Connecticut-based lab, Valisure LLC. Moreover, Bloomberg also reported the test results to the WHO as well as to Iraqi and Indian authorities last month. Last month, according to a test by Bloomberg News said that, the cold medication that was sold in Iraq is tainted with toxic chemicals.

NEW DELHI : The drug regulator has warned cough syrup manufacturers not to send samples of the same batch to multiple government-accredited testing laboratories at the same time. In the event of a drug maker found violating the rules, government labs will not test any of their samples, Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) Rajeev Raghuvanshi warned.

Riemann Labs, a manufacturer linked to cough syrup deaths in Cameroon, to stop manufacturing activities, said Reuters quoting the country's health ministry. Last month, the World Health Organization said a batch of cough and cold syrup sold in Cameroon under the brand name Naturcold contained extremely high levels of a toxic ingredient, the latest in a series of recent warnings about contaminated cough syrups.

Gambia government to explore legal action against the Indian government, Maiden Pharmaceuticals and a local drug importer for the deaths of 70 children last year due to kidney injury allegedly caused by India-made cough syrup. «It is safe to conclude, without any qualms, that the deaths of the 70 children below the age of five between July and October 2022 related to acute kidney injury (AKI) are a direct result of contaminated medicines found in four cough and cold syrups imported by Atlantic Pharmacy from Maiden Pharmaceuticals in India,» the task force said in its report.

Bloomberg News. With this, it becomes the latest in a series of alarming revelations about syrup medicines used by children around the world. According to Valisure LLC, an independent US laboratory, a bottle of Cold Out purchased at a pharmacy in Baghdad in March contains 2.1% ethylene glycol, about 21 times the widely accepted limit.

Gambia and Uzbekistan due to Made in India cough syrup dented country's image as the "pharmacy of the world" providing affordable drugs globally. Indian regulators are also inspecting the faulty drugmakers. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has flagged contamination with unacceptable amounts of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol, which are toxic to humans when consumed and can prove fatal, in samples taken from a batch of cough syrup made by QP Pharmachem Ltd, based in Punjab.

India's ban on shipments of a key variety is squeezing supplies and igniting concerns over food security. Buyers from Africa to Asia are likely to scramble for rice shipments as supplies tighten in coming months following India's decision last week to ban non-basmati white rice exports.

Gambia and Uzbekistan last year. The WHO flagged contamination with unacceptable amounts of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol, which are considered toxic to humans when consumed and can prove fatal, in samples taken from a batch of cough syrup made by QP Pharmachem Ltd, based in the northern Punjab state. However, the company denied wrongdoing and told Reuters it planned to appeal against the suspension.

pharmaceutical exports this fiscal year are set to grow nearly twice as fast as last year to hit sales of $27 billion, driven by strong U.S. buying, a government-backed trade body told Reuters, despite deaths linked to Indian-made cough syrups. The robust forecast comes against the backdrop of earlier concerns from the government that last year's deaths of dozens of children in Gambia, which the World Health Organization (WHO) linked to drugs made in India, had «adversely impacted the image of India's pharmaceutical products across the globe». Two other cough syrups made in India killed 19 children in Uzbekistan around December, according to the Uzbekistan government. India is the world's third largest maker of drugs by volume after the United States and China, and senior pharma trade official Udaya Bhaskar said the country was too big a player for buyers to move away because of «these aberrations» in Gambia and Uzbekistan. «As far as the Gambia and Uzbekistan incidents are concerned, if you see in terms of the image of the country, there is a dent,» Bhaskar, director general of the Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council of India (Pharmexcil), told Reuters on Tuesday.

DUBAI (Reuters) — Standard Chartered said on Friday it has reached an agreement to sell its subsidiaries in sub-Saharan Africa to Nigeria's Access Bank, putting into motion a plan announced last year to divest those businesses.

India is demanding higher standards from small and medium-sized drugmakers, the health minister said on Tuesday, in a bid to improve product quality after Indian-made cough syrups were linked to deaths of children overseas. India's image as the «pharmacy of the world», offering cheaper alternatives to Western products, took a hit following the deaths of at least 89 children in Gambia and Uzbekistan last year after consuming cough syrups made in India.

NEW DELHI : Government laboratories have received around 300 cough syrup samples for quality testing after the embarrassment of toxic syrups causing deaths abroad. Indian-made cough syrups have been linked to the death of dozens of children in Uzbekistan and Gambia, prompting the government to tighten the export policy for cough syrups.

Bhutan without any license for one more year till June 2024. Earlier, it was allowed till June 30 this year. «Import of potatoes...is allowed from Bhutan without any import license, up to June 30, 2024,» the directorate general of foreign trade (DGFT) said in a notification.

Bhutan without any license for one more year till June 2024. Earlier it was allowed till June 30 this year.

Thirty two central bankers and 12 financial chiefs representing 44 nations will meet in El Salvador later today, per the nation’s President Nayib Bukele, who claimed that – among other things – the group will discuss bitcoin (BTC).