BHOPAL: Under intense public scrutiny and facing calls for accountability over the death of 14 Chhindwara children, state health officials are on a hunt for ‘killer bottles’. Authorities have launched an intensive drive to trace nearly 200 bottles of the supposed cough reliever that were sold out.Multiple teams from Madhya Pradesh’s food and drugs administration (FDA), on Saturday, last week, froze about 430 bottles of Coldrif in Chhindwara district. Officials said about 200 bottles of the syrup were already sold, and efforts are on to trace where they went. However FDA sources confirmed that the syrup was sold only in Chhindwara.
“The door-to-door survey is on to trace these bottles. So far, around 157 have been traced. Some people said they used the syrup and threw away the bottles — those are also being counted,” an official said.74 Bottles Or 87?Meanwhile, what started as a routine inventory check has now turned into a mystery, as Apna Medical Store, a small pharmacy located beside a suspended doctor’s clinic at Parasia in Chhindwara, was flagged for holding 87 bottles of Coldrif cough syrup. But when MPFDA officials reviewed the count on Monday, only 74 bottles were listed—leaving 13 unaccounted for and officials demanding answers, sources told TOI on Monday.When an account of the stock was sought from MPFDA on Monday, a note said 74 bottles. That left 13 unaccounted for, and a room full of officials asking: Where did they go? Soon, the FDA inspecting officer claimed the missing bottles were part of samples sent for testing to FDA and CDSCO labs. Add 13 and it equals 87.The number mismatch poses a a bigger question. Former MPFDA commissioner Dinesh Kumar Maurya had stated that 19 samples were dispatched—13 to the state FDA and 6 to CDSCO. If 63% samples came from this one pharmacy, why weren’t other outlets investigated? And if 13 were sent, why weren’t they properly logged?
