‘There would’ve been more deaths if syrup was toxic’

Team members talks to survivors, families of victims.

GUJRANWALA: The team constituted by the government to prepare a report on the death of 43 people in Gujranwala and Kamoke, thought to have been caused by a cough syrup, hopes to submit it by the end of the month.

Members of the team met with survivors, doctors and police during their second visit to the city on Thursday.The team started the investigation last week. As many as 11 people, who had been referred to Lahore after consuming the syrup Dextromethorphan, and their families were interviewed.

Syed Zulfiqar Hussain, a consultant with the Anti Narcotics Campaign, told The Express Tribune that the people they had talked to had admitted to consuming as much as two bottles of the cough syrup at a time to get high. Some of them also owned up to mixing alcohol in the syrup and consuming it along with tranquilisers like Xanax, Restoril, Avil and Diazepam (Valium).

Hussain said most of the victims belonged to the labour class. Among the 11 survivors interviewed were three college students. All of them, he said, were “chronic addicts” – people who had been using drugs to sate their addiction for two years. “Such people require up to 80 per cent more drugs to get take effect.”

Malik Javed, another team member, said that the team had so far identified 66 companies that manufacture cough syrups. Of these, around 40 syrups have Dextromethorphan as one of the ingredients whereas 16 syrups have Dextromethorphan as the active ingredient.

Hussain, who also prepared the report about the cough syrup-related deaths caused in Lahore, told The Express Tribune that this report’s findings may be similar to the first report. The first report, which was released on January 1, had stated that there was nothing wrong with the Tyno cough syrup. All the deaths had been caused by consuming large quantities of the syrup sometimes laved with drugs and alcohol. Families of the victims have rejected the findings.

“The casualties would have been in hundreds or thousands had the problem been a contaminated batch of the syrups,” Hussain said.

The members also noted with concern the insufficient number of drug inspectors that are expected to keep a check on the sale of medicines. A total of seven inspectors monitor the seven towns of Gujranwala. Hussain said the drug inspectors, few as they were, were not discharging their duties “as they should”. A loophole that needs to be plugged, he said, was the sale of certain drugs without prescription.

The committee will also recommend that the government launch an awareness campaign about the dangers associated with the sale of certain medicines used as recreational drugs.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY AATEKAH MIR-KHAN

Published in The Express Tribune, January 19^th, 2013.