Banjul: Gambia has ordered importers and shops to suspend sales of all brands of paracetamol syrup while the government investigates a suspected link between the medicine and the deaths of dozens of children.
Last Thursday, the head of the West African country's health service said it had launched the probe after a spike in cases of acute kidney injury among children under the age of five was detected in late July.
The medicines regulator, known as the Medicines Control Agency (MCA), said there was insufficient data to warrant a general ban on paracetamol syrups, a painkiller often used to treat fevers in children.
The children suffered symptoms that included an inability to pass urine, as well as fever and vomiting that quickly led to kidney failure.
It did not name any -rands, but said some samples had been sent abroad for quality control testing.
Last week, World Health Organization officials said the evidence pointed not to paracetamol but to an infectious origin such as polluted water, but emphasised there were many unanswered questions.
Autopsies from the children's death 'suggest the possibility of paracetamol intakes’, says Health Services director Mustapha Bittaye
In August,Gambia's health ministry in August raised the alarm over the death in similar circumstances of 28 infants from suspected E.coli.
The conditions of the children before they died had deteriorated to kidney failures, vomiting, difficulty urinating and fever.
Gambia's health infrastructure is known to be fragile.