New Delhi— In a heartbreaking echo of a tragedy that has already claimed dozens of young lives, two more infants have died in Madhya Pradesh, allegedly after being given contaminated or improper cough syrups. The deaths—a six-month-old girl in Chhindwara district’s Bichhua and a five-month-old boy in Mauganj district—were reported on Wednesday, thrusting the state back into national outrage just weeks after 24 children succumbed to acute kidney failure from toxic formulations in the same region. As investigations deepen into India’s 2025 cough syrup crisis, families grieve anew, demanding accountability from a pharmaceutical system riddled with regulatory lapses.
The latest victims highlight the persistent peril facing vulnerable children in rural India, where over-the-counter remedies meant for relief often deliver poison. In Bichhua, a remote town in Chhindwara—ground zero for the earlier outbreak—six-month-old Ruhi Minote was rushed to the local community health center on Thursday morning, only to be declared brought dead upon arrival. Her parents, Sandip and his wife, had sought help at a government facility on Monday but found no doctor available. Desperate for treatment for her cold and cough, they turned to the nearby Kurethe Medicals, a private pharmacy, purchasing small sachets of unnamed medicines alongside a herbal cough syrup.
“Her condition seemed better at first, but by Tuesday, she was gasping for breath,” Sandip recounted, his voice breaking in interviews with local media. The infant’s rapid decline—marked by vomiting and lethargy—mirrors symptoms from the prior wave of poisonings. Authorities have sealed the pharmacy, seized the medicines for forensic testing by the state Food and Drugs Department, and launched an inquest under Section 194 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita. Two men operating the store are under questioning, with police station in-charge Satish Uikey vowing “strict action if negligence is proven.” Chhindwara, already scarred by at least 20 child deaths last month from the DEG-laced Coldrif syrup, has residents clamoring for pharmacy raids and mandatory prescriptions.
Miles away in Mauganj tehsil of Rewa district, a five-month-old boy met a similar fate after his parents, lacking medical guidance, obtained “wrong medicine” from a local store without a prescription. The infant, whose name has not been disclosed, died shortly after ingestion, prompting an FIR against the medical store owner on Sunday, October 27. Details remain sparse, but officials suspect the dispensed remedy—potentially a cough syrup amid the statewide alert—contained adulterants or was grossly mismatched for an infant’s delicate system. “This is not just a store error; it’s a systemic failure,” said a district health official, noting the boy’s symptoms aligned with renal distress seen in prior cases.
These deaths cap a grim month for Madhya Pradesh, where the cough syrup crisis erupted in early October, claiming 24 young lives by mid-month—mostly toddlers under five in Chhindwara and adjacent areas. The culprit: Coldrif, a Tamil Nadu-manufactured syrup contaminated with 48.6% diethylene glycol (DEG), a sweet-tasting but deadly industrial solvent substituted for cost-cutting. DEG triggers swift kidney shutdown, with symptoms including abdominal agony, anuria, and organ failure—devastating in children whose bodies offer little resistance.
The outbreak’s timeline is a cascade of warnings ignored. By October 2, Madhya Pradesh banned Coldrif after lab confirmations; tests revealed the same toxin in Gujarat’s Respifresh TR and ReLife syrups, though they claimed no fatalities. Rajasthan reported three more deaths from a dextromethorphan-based generic, prompting nationwide halts on under-five prescriptions for such drugs. The World Health Organization sounded a global alarm on October 13, flagging India’s “substandard” syrups and urging vigilance worldwide, evoking memories of 2022’s Gambia tragedy where 70 children perished from similar Indian exports.
Government crackdowns have been fierce but fragmented. Sresan Pharma’s owner, G. Ranganathan, faces life imprisonment for manslaughter and adulteration; his facility—deemed “unsafe and abandoned”—was sealed, licenses revoked. In Chhindwara, pediatrician Praveen Soni, who allegedly peddled the tainted syrup for kickbacks, was arrested alongside his wife Jyoti, accused of evidence tampering. The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) now inspects factories across six states, while the Enforcement Directorate probes financial trails. Yet, experts decry “weak oversight,” pointing to the Drugs & Cosmetics Act’s loopholes that allow untested batches to flood rural pharmacies.
As the toll nears 30, with dozens more children hospitalized, the crisis exposes deeper inequities: In heat-scorched villages like Bichhua and Mauganj, absent doctors and unregulated shops turn hope into hazard. “We sold our jewelry for this poison,” wailed one Chhindwara mother, echoing families who raced children 100 kilometers to Nagpur hospitals, only to bury them. The health ministry has mandated pediatric labels and dosing curbs, but activists call for a full moratorium on infant syrups until AI-driven quality checks become standard.
For now, Madhya Pradesh’s little ones pay the price of profit over purity. As Ruhi’s father cradles her photo, he pleads: “Test every bottle. Save the next child.” In a nation of 1.4 billion, where coughs kill quietly, that cry demands more than echoes—it begs revolution.
