Gambia probes link between child deaths and paracetamol syrup

[September 08, 2022]  By Edward McAllister and Pap Saine

BANJUL (Reuters) -Gambia's government is investigating whether the death of dozens of young children from kidney failure in recent months is linked to a paracetamol syrup, the West African country's health director said on Thursday.

A spike in cases of acute kidney injury among children under the age of five was detected in late July.

Symptoms including an inability to pass urine and a fever can within hours end in kidney failure.

"Dozens of children have died in the last three months," Gambia's director of health services, Mustapha Bittaye, told Reuters. "Autopsies suggest the possibility of paracetamol."

It was not yet clear if one brand of paracetamol was under investigation. Bittaye said it was likely a syrup sold locally.
 

In a statement last week, Gambia's health authorities said that this kind of illness often has more than one cause.

E. coli bacteria was also a possibility, Bittaye said.

In an update a month ago, the health ministry reported 28 deaths. Bittaye said that the number was much higher now.

An official tally is expected in coming days, he said.

(Reporting by Pap Saine and Edward McAllister; Editing by Jon Boyle)

[© 2022 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]  This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.  Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.